Sociology Essays

Sociology Essays: Social Psychology

The diverse traditions within social psychology have spawned differing ideas of social psychology as a science. The term science is itself awkward to define, but can be broadly thought of in terms of incorporating research, theory, oncology and objectivity or interpretation. Three of the perspectives listed above, the experimental/cognitive, the experiential/humanistic and the social constructionist approaches, have postulated different notions about social psychology and the kind of science it is.

The most dominant approach, experimental social psychology, with its emphasis on empirical investigations that examine objective, observable behaviour in trying to establish regular "cause and effect" laws, views the controlled investigations and experiments that are characteristic of a scientific "natural" approach as being the way forward; this promotes the idea of social psychology as a naturalistic scientific science.

The experiential/humanistic approach, with its focus on actual lived experience, seeks to examine and interpret people's experience and the meanings they hold for their actions and the actions of others, and assumes that people actively construct their experience through exercising autonomy. Each unique individual can become reflexively aware and this can facilitate the process of personal growth and generally improve the experience of living.

This "person of potential" approach presents the idea that social psychology is a "moral" science.

The social constructionist approach has its emphasis on the idea of people as social beings influenced, constructed and defined by their social context, and that people also play a part in shaping society (this mutual interdependence can be seen through the analysis of the observation of interactions, interviews and event records). As this approach views the social context, with its resources, economics, meanings and ideologies as being inexplicably bound up with the person, it deems social psychology a critical, "political" science.

These critiques have omitted the biological and psychodynamic perspectives - however, the biological perspective, with its focus on the human as a biological being and the experimental methods it uses, seems to fall easily under the umbrella of a natural science.

The psychodynamic perspective is more complex - it could perhaps be argued that its focus on the unconscious and childhood experience and the centrality of the therapeutic encounter to help people cope with life and make them feel better would make it suited to the idea of a moral science, although it could also be broadly termed a personal science. Overall, the consensus seems to be that social psychology is a science - the trouble is that the different perspectives have different ideas about what kind of science!

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