Review of Understanding social life. An introduction to social psychology.

1976 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 605-605
Author(s):  
ELLEN BERSCHEID
Author(s):  
Ю.В. Ковалева

Представлен историографический анализ развития понятия большие социальные группы и историко-психологический анализ социальных феноменов , связанных с массовыми общественными явлениями в России. Сформулированы актуальные проблемы психологии больших социальных групп, к которым относятся неоднородность оснований для их выделения, недостаточная дифференцированность со сходными понятиями, неравномерность исследований в различные временные периоды и идеологическая нагруженность их разработки. Данная работа была ответом на необходимость восполнения знаний о процессах в таких группах, происходивших в различные исторические периоды развития социальной психологии, с соответствующим им уровнем научного осмысления, а также обобщением этой целостной картины на уровне современного понимания и формулировка перспективных направлений исследований. Целью исследования является установление связи между определением и основными свойствами понятия «большие социальные группы» (его синонимов, аналогов) и особенностями социальной ситуации в определенный период времени, а также реконструкция социальных процессов данного исторического этапа. Проверялась гипотеза о том, что большие социальные группы как феномены социальной жизни формировались в соответствии с историческим временем, а соответствующее им понятие и его свойства с одной стороны отвечали уровню развития гуманитарного знания, а с другой - пытались удовлетворить общественный и политический запрос в объяснении и управлении социальной ситуацией. Использовались методы историографии социальной психологии и психолого-исторической реконструкции . Первая часть статьи посвящена анализу первых двух этапов развития социальной психологии - с середины XIX до начала XX вв. и в 1920-е гг. XX в. The historiographic analysis of the development of the concept of large social groups and historical and psychological study of social phenomena associated with mass social phenomena was presented. Topical problems of the psychology of large social groups are formulated, including heterogeneity of the grounds for their isolation, insufficient differentiation with similar concepts, uneven research in various periods, and ideological loading of the history of its development. The study's main problem was the need to replenish the processes in such groups that took place in various historical periods of social psychology development as well as a synthesis of this holistic picture at the level of modern understanding and the formulation of promising areas of research. The study's purpose was to establish a connection between the definition and the basic properties of the concept of "large social groups" (and its synonyms, analogs) and the peculiarities of the social situation in a certain period, as well as the reconstruction of social processes of this historical segment. The hypothesis was tested that large social groups as phenomena of social life were formed under the past time. The concept and its properties were corresponding to them, on the one hand, compared to the level of development of humanitarian knowledge. On the other, they tried to satisfy the social and political requests to understand and manage the social situation. Methods of the historiography of the history of social psychology and psychological and historical reconstruction were used. The article's first part was devoted to the analysis of the early two stages of the development of social psychology - from the middle of the XIX to the beginning of the XX centuries and 1920 of the XX century.


2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-277
Author(s):  
Adam M. Croom

Abstract For some time now moral psychologists and philosophers have ganged up on Aristotelians, arguing that results from psychological studies on the role of character-based and situation-based influences on human behavior have convincingly shown that situations rather than personal characteristics determine human behavior. In the literature on moral psychology and philosophy this challenge is commonly called the “situationist challenge,” and as Prinz (2009) has previously explained, it has largely been based on results from four salient studies in social psychology, including the studies conducted by Hartshorne and May (1928), Milgram (1963), Isen and Levin (1972), and Darley and Batson (1973). The situationist challenge maintains that each of these studies seriously challenges the plausibility of virtuous personal characteristics by challenging the plausibility of personal characteristics more generally. In this article I undermine the situationist challenge against Aristotelian moral psychology by carefully considering major problems with the conclusions that situationists have drawn from the empirical data, and by further challenging the accuracy of their characterization of the Aristotelian view. In fact I show that when properly understood the Aristotelian view is not only consistent with empirical data from developmental science but can also offer important insights for integrating moral psychology with its biological roots in our natural and social life.


2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel D. Gosling

An imbalance is identified in social psychology between controlled experimental studies (which are common) and real-world, ecologically valid studies (which are rare). The preponderance of experimental studies (which provide mere existence proofs and lack realism) helps fuel social psychology's fault-finding focus. Laboratory experiments and ecological studies should be pursued jointly to examine social life in the real world.


Author(s):  
A. Rafikov

The author reflects on the role of social optimism as an essential new factor of institutional culture, which function is to guarantee a systemic unity of modern institution and its competitiveness related to another subjects of social interaction. The article presents the results of empirical research on social optimism and its role in social life according to the view of native experts’ community (doctors and candidates of psychological sciences in the sphere of social psychology). The variety of «social optimism» notions, determined by experts, is demonstrated; it is mentioned that such diversity is a natural result in conditions of absence of a stable scientific view regarding to that phenomenon. The list of content categories to define social optimism (such as system of knowledge, way of world-perceiving, faith, positive expectations, attitude, mechanism, copying-strategy etc.) is analyzed. The factors of institutional social optimism are classified: 1) optimistic corporative ideology and social support within the institution; 2) inclusion and a personal adaptive activity of the members of institution to organize individual and social existence; 3) positive expectations of the work itself, based on the previous positive experience and self-reflection; 4) correspondence of personal and common purposes of the members of institution. The article analyzed the factors of social optimism as those are represented by discourse of native experts’ community. The role of social optimism is outlined in the aspects of how it improves institutional environment and how it enhances institutional culture of modern organization and the ways of institution’s development.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifford Stevenson ◽  
Nick Hopkins ◽  
Russell Luyt ◽  
John Dixon

In this article we review the argument outlined in the opening article in this special thematic section: that the current social psychology of citizenship can be understood as the development of longstanding conceptualisations of the concept within the discipline. These conceptualisations have contributed to the current social psychological study of the constructive, active and collective (but often exclusive) understandings of citizenship in people’s everyday lives, as evidenced by contributions to this thematic section. We consider how this emerging body of work might fit with current citizenship studies and in particular how it may contribute to the current trend towards conceiving citizenship as an active practice embedded in everyday social life. Specifically, we highlight three areas of future research that we think are particularly promising: citizenship and recognition; displays and enactments of citizenship in public space; citizenship and lived coexistence. Although this is far from an exhaustive list of possibilities, we propose that research in these areas could enable the way for social psychology to articulate a distinct, recognisable and valuable contribution to citizenship studies.


Author(s):  
Stuart Dunmore

Various perspectives have been brought to bear on the interrelationship of language, culture and identity within sociolinguistics, the sociology of language, social psychology and linguistic anthropology. This chapter is structured into five overarching sections, setting out a wider theoretical framework surrounding the nexus of language and social life. The chapter seeks firstly to define a conceptual framework for examining the interplay of language and sociocultural identity, before addressing the symbolic value of languages, essentialist conceptions of identity and the relationship between language and nationalism. It then introduces the concept of language ideologies and reviews theoretical understandings of how speakers’ culturally constituted beliefs and feelings about language can be seen to impact upon their use of different linguistic varieties. The chapter subsequently considers language socialisation, and focuses on how bilingual (immersion) education may interact with considerations of language and identity, ideologies and socialisation in diverse settings internationally. The framework established will thus conceptualise how these matters can help to frame the key themes and objectives of the book.


2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberta Contarello ◽  
Elena Vellico

The aim of the article is to illustrate the contribution of research with literary tests to study Self1 and social relationships. We briefly overview, first, different theoretical approaches using literature in social psychology, second, the analysis of Self and identity within the framework of social representations. This perspective considers literary texts—co-creations of their time—worth of study to test and expand social psychological knowledge. In the present research the importance of the individualism—collectivism dimension to understand social “worlds,” and of dynamic forces underlying social life is tested. After considering studies on Self and culture in the Indian context, a novel by Anita Desai—a recognized authoress, renowned in India and in the West—is analyzed. Content and correspondence analyses were performed to detect dimensions underlying the portrayed characters and relationships. The resulting structures partially support but also extend social psychological knowledge on Self and relationships.


Author(s):  
Antonio Trajano Arruda

P. F. Strawson’s essay "Freedom and Resentment" was a landmark in the study of determinism, free-will, and morality. It contributed a much-needed correction to the problem of overintellectualization as found in twentieth-century compatibilist literature. Although most of the central claims in Strawson’s essay are important and true, it fails to fill the lacuna in the analysis, discussion and proposals of traditional compatibilism. The reasons may be summarized as follows. The web of moral demands, feelings and participant attitudes comprises a set of facts within human social life which must be investigated in order to understand the relation (or lack thereof) between determinism and morality. If the facts themselves fill the gap, then it must be some adequate and coherent understanding of them. According to Strawson, the incompatibilist has an understandable dissatisfaction with his opponent’s account because, among other things, the latter fails to deal with the condition of desert and of the justice of moral condemnation and punishment. However, the theory of "Freedom and Resentment" fails equally on this point. What is now needed is a combination of factual study with ethical inquiry. The former would draw on the results of social psychology, the psychology of moral development, the social sciences of morals, and (philosophical) moral psychology.


1924 ◽  
Vol 70 (290) ◽  
pp. 362-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian D. Suttie

There is a type of social psychology which finds the explanation of man's social behaviour in a hypothetical “disposition” of his mind. This motive-complex is conceived as specialized for the function of adapting conduct to social life, and as being in itself relatively closely integrated, developing and functioning as a whole. Of this hypothetical “gregarious instinct” McDougall goes so far as to say: “For it is highly probable that instinctive dispositions are Mendelian units” (Journ of Abn. Psych, and Soc. Psych., vol. xvi, p. 316). This plainly suggests that the unity of the social disposition (its existence as a discrete factor in development) is to be regarded as antedating experience—that it is an ultimate datum for psychology not susceptible to analysis, and is not a derivative of any other known motive such as “love,” “fear,” or “hope of reward.” This “instinct” interpretation of social behaviour has been criticized on many grounds (as unfruitful for psychology and incompatible with biological fact); but of course the demonstration of a Mendelian transmission of the social disposition would compel us to regard it as an element of character. Our conception of mental development and of the “socialization” of the individual, of the relative significance of upbringing as compared with organic endowment and our whole psycho-pathology depend upon our acceptance or rejection of McDougall's view. If he is right in regard to the germinal “unit” determination of the social disposition, criminological studies should offer verification. I propose, therefore, to consider how far we are justified in regarding moral insanity and moral imbecility as true “morbid entities.”


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