PSYCHOLOGY AND CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Abstract

It has long been argued by social theorists that psychology has played a pivotal role in the culture and politics of modern life. This argument was influentially developed in Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilisation, now nearly fifty years old, which showed how our modern embrace of rationality and normality depends on the psychological “enclosure” of the mad as outside the social pale. The philosopher Ian Hacking has looked at the role of psychology in “making up people”, through defining a series of mental problems (such as schizophrenia, neurosis and suchlike) which are then taken up by people so that they become powerful social labels. More recently, influential sociologists ranging from Anthony Giddens to Zygmunt Bauman and Richard Sennett have developed a rich account of the insecurities of the modern self as the need to live in a complex and uncertain world leads to people developing psychological defence mechanisms.