Seventy years of social psychology: A cultural and personal critique
Author(s) / Creator(s)
Jahoda, Gustav
Abstract / Description
This paper traces some salient aspects of my research career, focusing largely on work in West Africa. From this lessons are drawn about the shortcomings of social psychology, especially in its laboratory version. It tends to tacitly ignore the effects of cultural influences, assuming that its findings are universally valid. Studies are mainly conducted with adults, generally college students, who are unrepresentative even of the general population of the United States where the bulk of social psychological studies are concentrated. This is justified in terms an alleged ‘psychic unity’. Social psychology pays little attention to the processes whereby children become socialized into particular cultures, which then governs their social behaviour. Methods are usually formal, and observational ones are eschewed, so that research takes place in artificial setting. This brings me to the almost complete absence of links with cognate disciplines, notably anthropology, which could greatly enrich social psychology. Suggestions are made for more wide-ranging approaches which would overcome the aridity of a great deal of current experimental social psychological research.
Keyword(s)
autobiography history weaknesses of social psychology experimentation West Africa anthropology child developmentPersistent Identifier
Date of first publication
2016-05-24
Journal title
Journal of Social and Political Psychology
Volume
4
Issue
1
Page numbers
364–380
Publisher
PsychOpen GOLD
Publication status
publishedVersion
Review status
peerReviewed
Is version of
Citation
Jahoda, G. (2016). Seventy years of social psychology: A cultural and personal critique. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 4(1), 364–380. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i1.621
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Jahoda, Gustav
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PsychArchives acquisition timestamp2018-11-26T12:44:49Z
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Made available on2018-11-26T12:44:49Z
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Date of first publication2016-05-24
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Abstract / DescriptionThis paper traces some salient aspects of my research career, focusing largely on work in West Africa. From this lessons are drawn about the shortcomings of social psychology, especially in its laboratory version. It tends to tacitly ignore the effects of cultural influences, assuming that its findings are universally valid. Studies are mainly conducted with adults, generally college students, who are unrepresentative even of the general population of the United States where the bulk of social psychological studies are concentrated. This is justified in terms an alleged ‘psychic unity’. Social psychology pays little attention to the processes whereby children become socialized into particular cultures, which then governs their social behaviour. Methods are usually formal, and observational ones are eschewed, so that research takes place in artificial setting. This brings me to the almost complete absence of links with cognate disciplines, notably anthropology, which could greatly enrich social psychology. Suggestions are made for more wide-ranging approaches which would overcome the aridity of a great deal of current experimental social psychological research.en_US
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Publication statuspublishedVersion
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Review statuspeerReviewed
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CitationJahoda, G. (2016). Seventy years of social psychology: A cultural and personal critique. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 4(1), 364–380. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i1.621en_US
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ISSN2195-3325
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Persistent Identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12034/1413
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Persistent Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.1714
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Language of contenteng
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PublisherPsychOpen GOLD
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Is version ofhttps://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v4i1.621
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Keyword(s)autobiographyen_US
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Keyword(s)historyen_US
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Keyword(s)weaknesses of social psychologyen_US
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Keyword(s)experimentationen_US
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Keyword(s)West Africaen_US
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Keyword(s)anthropologyen_US
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Keyword(s)child developmenten_US
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Dewey Decimal Classification number(s)150
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TitleSeventy years of social psychology: A cultural and personal critiqueen_US
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DRO typearticle
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Issue1
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Journal titleJournal of Social and Political Psychology
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Page numbers364–380
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Volume4
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Visible tag(s)Version of Record