Social psychology as a stable interpretative framework irrefutably committed to the scientific study of persons and society
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8975779 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Collin D Barnes (0000-0002-4283-3209, Department of Psychology Hillsdale College Hillsdale Michigan USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 142-159 |
| Publication date | 2022-04-29 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8308 • E-ISSN: 1468-5914 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/jtsb.12345 |
| OpenAlex | W4225164736 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 37 |
Despite repeated opportunities to reconsider their natural science ambitions, social psychologists have not done so, and there are no obvious signs of this changing. Why? This paper pursues an answer to this question by defining the field after the fashion of Michael Polanyi's thought. According to Polanyi, interpretative frameworks develop from our primitive bodily encounters with the world and then are shaped by language into the vast conceptual systems of our culture. Concerning frameworks erected on our most fundamental beliefs (e.g., science), he says that we “live in [them] as in the garment of our own skin.” Frameworks such as this are not objects of critical evaluation but of commitment, and social psychology, as an outgrowth of positive philosophy, is an interpretative framework in this sense. Professionals' recent responses to the field's political makeup and replication failures demonstrate this. They aim primarily at preserving a natural science understanding of social psychology and point to the influence of belief‐stabilizing mechanisms Polanyi finds operative in folk religious practices. These mechanisms appear at work also in psychology as a whole. They are implied, for instance, in the field's resistance to Sigmund Koch's authoritative judgement against its scientific self‐conception in the latter half of the 20 th century. Noting this reveals the broader implications of this paper's definition of social psychology, but it also urges questions about truth and relativity that cannot be ignored. These questions are addressed briefly in the end where it is suggested that what psychology needs most of all is a change of heart, and that this will happen, if at all, not primarily through argument and evidence, but through persons who authentically believe in the veracity of a different framework
Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Judgement · Natural (archaeology · Psychology of science · Sociology · Cultural Differences and Values · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Representations and Identity
Handbook of Social Psychology
Measurement in Psychology
Psychology
Psychology's Renaissance
Comment on “Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science”
Don’t Tread on Me
Political diversity will improve social psychological science
Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science
False-Positive Psychology
The Logic of Personal Knowledge
The Conceptual, Cunning, and Conclusive Experiment in Psychology
A Polanyian Appraisal of Likert-Scale Measurement in Social Psychology
Science, Faith and Society
System Justification, the Denial of Global Warming, and the Possibility of “System-Sanctioned Change”
One big idea, one ultimate concern
The lasting legacy of Sigmund Koch
The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology
A Plea for Psychology as a 'Natural Science
Do psychologists understand honor cultures when they operationalize them
The crisis of confidence in social psychology
The principles of psychology
Social psychology as history
The disappearance of the social in American social psychology
The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy
What Is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |