Rethinking the Crisis in Social Psychology: A Dialectical Perspective

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the crisis in social psychology as a multifaceted process. The epistemological, theoretical, and methodological tensions and controversies that arise in the extensive, reflexive debate on the crisis in social psychology are considered in their interconnections with psychological practice. The paper argues that despite the dominant tendency to return to “business as usual”, the increasing disunity and fragmentation of social psychology only indicate that its crisis has deepened. The paper offers a critical account of the main strategies for the resolution of the crisis in social psychology and suggests a dialectical perspective as a tool for a critical reflection on important theoretical and methodological issues of psychology as a discipline (the relationship between theory and practice, relationship between individual and society, empiricism, etc.)