Interdisciplinary Social Psychology Research Articles

Liberating Data: Politics of Reality in Interdisciplinary Social Psychology.

This paper draws attention to the meaning of data, politics and reality in social psychology. Since social psychological data matters, critical reflection on data handling and interpretations expands the horizon of social psychology beyond the cause-effect nexus. Social psychological enterprise is a political field where the role of structure and power give meaning to the data, and hence construct the reality. This can be further situated in the institutions and the dominant paradigm which regulates the structuring of data and interpretations. The current paper debates the politics of data, human agency, and the way data in social psychology has the potential to be liberating and change-oriented.

Social Psychology, Social Science, and Economics: Twentieth Century Progress and Problems, Twenty-first Century Prospects

Stimulated by social scientists' and especially social psychologists' contributions during World War II, as well as by America's post-war economic and population growth, the period from 1945 to 1970 was widely viewed as a “Golden Age” for American social science. Interdisciplinary social psychology arguably was in the vanguard of these developments. Progress since then have been variable and in some ways negative for social psychology, not only as an interdisciplinary field, but also within its parent disciplines of psychology and especially sociology, where social psychology could plausibly become extinct within twenty-five years. The decline of social psychology as a field and a broad influence on the social sciences, society, and public policy has coincided with a rise of economics to an analogous vanguard position. Understanding the reasons for and implications of these trends has been limited, with a focus on analyses of developments within particular disciplines. However, developments across the social sciences, and society more broadly, are equally or more important to understanding these trends. Future prospects also depend heavily on these broader societal forces, but the inertial tendencies of trajectories since 1970 within and between social science disciplines and fields will necessarily play a major role. The twenty-first century offers the prospect of renewed importance of social psychology in a more interdisciplinary and integrated set of social and policy sciences, if social psychologists and the parent disciplines of sociology and psychology are prepared to capitalize on and take leadership of emerging opportunities.

The idea of an interdisciplinary social psychology: An historical and rhetorical analysis.

The idea of an interdisciplinary social psychology: An historical and rhetorical analysis.

Some Reflections on the Golden Age of Interdisciplinary Social Psychology

In the 25 years or so that began with World War II, there was a great wave of enthusiasm for interdisciplinary social psychology which resulted in the establishment of interdisciplinary social psychology training and research programs in some of the major universities in the United States. By the mid-1960s however, this seeming Golden Age had largely vanished. This article, by one of the participants in this movement, is devoted to an elaboration of how this Golden Age came about and the forces that led to its demise. Its origins are traced to the World War II experiences of social psychologists in interdisciplinary research on the adjustments of the American soldier under the leadership of Samuel Stoffer and with Rensis Likert on the US strategic bombing surveys in Germany and Japan. Many of the participants in this research were greatly impressed by the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary collaboration and were determined to establish interdisciplinary social psychology programs on their return to their universities. Several of these programs were very successful for a number of years, especially those at Harvard and Michigan, but failed to survive and become integrated into the institutional structure of the American university. The reasons for their failures are complex but at least four factors seem to have been important. First, the threat of these programs to the traditional departmental structure of the university—particularly in light of the relatively weak position of the social sciences in that structure. Second, the lack of adequate and appropriate funding from either university or federal sources. Third, the lack of a major breakthrough in social psychological theory. Fourth, advancements in research methods did not produce greatly increased understanding of social psychological phenomena. These factors are examined and contrasted with the situation in the natural sciences, particularly with molecular biology.