The Crisis in Social Psychology: Elements for the Epistemological Discussion of the Concept of Crisis

Abstract

Is there a crisis in modern Social Psychology? Which are the main factors of it? Is it un epistemological breakdown? This article shows a brief development of the principal arguments -accepting or denying- the existence of a critical situation in the field of Social Psychology; it also includes some epistemological and ideological reflections about the problem. The exposed arguments are linked with two main emergent factors: the lack of social relevance in psychosocial research and the polemical paradigmatic situation. Both factors, with a special “relationship knot” significance to the crisis’s dynamics, displaying a transitional moment for the Social Psychology, that is, from “modern” to “post-modern” sciences.