An Introduction to Social Psychology
Chapter 2: The Scope and Relations of Social Psychology
Luther Lee Bernard
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SOME DEFINITIONS-Social psychology has been differently defined by various writers. McDougall declares[1] that "Social psychology has to show how, given the native propensities and capacities of the individual human mind, all the complex mental life of societies is shaped by them and in turn reacts upon the course of their development and operation in the individual." He does not consider that the study of the "native propensities and capacities of the individual human mind" is properly a part of social psychology, but is "an indispensable preliminary to all social psychology." This definition places the emphasis less upon what happens to the complex mental (psycho-social) life of societies and the consciousness of individuals than upon ,how it happens.
Allport [2] also stresses the mechanism of the consciousness and behavior of the individual acting in a social situation and is not directly concerned with what occurs in the social organization as the result or the cause of these behavior processes. He says, "Social psychology is the science which studies the behavior of the individual in so far as his behavior stimulates other individuals, or is itself a reaction to their behavior; and which describes the consciousness of the individuals in so far as it is a consciousness of social objects and social reactions." In Chapter I we classified social psychology as a special science falling between psychology and the various social sciences. Allport regards it as a subdivision of individual psychology. "Social psychology must not be placed in contradistinction to the psychology of the individual; it is a Part o f the psychology of the individual, whose behavior it studies in relation to that sector of his environment comprised by his fellows." The definition of social psychology presented
(14) by J. M. Williams,[3] as "the science of the motives of people living in social relations," is not essentially different from this view on its face. But as a matter of fact Williams is very much concerned in his treatment with the social processes also, especially those of antagonism between groups and institutions. We may also be justified in saying that Williams includes unconscious along with conscious impulses in his category of motives.
Ellwood [4] claims social psychology as a subdivision of sociology, which he defines as "the science of the origin, development, structure, and functioning of groups." He maintains that "the problem of psychology is to explain the experience and behavior of the individual, while the problem of sociology is to explain the nature and the behavior of the group. As soon as interest shifts from the individual to the group, it shifts from the purely psychological to the sociological." He concludes that "Social psychology, in the sense of the psychology of group behavior, is accordingly a part of sociology. It is a study of the psychic factors involved in the origin, development, structure, and functioning of social groups." He contends, however, in his Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects, that the chief content of sociological data is psychological. Presumably, therefore, he would regard social psychology as the chief division of sociology.
Bogardus, like McDougall, defines social psychology in terms of what it does. He says,[5] "Social psychology studies intersocial stimulation and response, social attitudes, values and personalities. It begins with the individual human beings and original human nature and traces their growth through intersocial stimulation into persons with socialized attitudes." This definition would appear to apply to all socially conditioned behavior of individuals, but there is nothing in the statement, unless it is the terms "attitudes" and "values," to indicate the large measure of emphasis upon collective behavior processes which obtains in the actual treatment of this author.
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Ross' conception of social psychology is only in part similar to that of Bogardus; it is stated as follows: [6] "Social psychology, as the writer conceives it, studies the psychic planes and currents that come into existence among men in consequence of their association. It seeks to understand and account for those uniformities in feeling, belief, or volition-and hence in action -which are due to the interaction of human beings, i.e., to social causes." Ross is less interested in the mechanism of the behavior processes, also less concerned with the personalities which develop out of the associational or intersocial stimulation and response contacts. His chief interest is in the form of the psycho-social contacts. He deals with uniformities, or social planes and currents. The subject matter is primarily that of crowds, publics, fads, fashions, crazes, conventions, and customs, and only secondarily that of the methods of contact, such as suggestion and imitation, with which Bogardus is so largely concerned.
The broadest definition of all is that of Gault: [7] "Social psychology in its widest sense applies to a study of interactions among animals. More specifically, and as the term is usually employed, it applies to the reactions of members of the human race one to another . . . . They may or may not be accompanied by a consciousness of the social relation." Apparently, according to this definition, all interactions of men or of animals is socio-psychic. Therefore, it would seem to follow, that almost all conduct in a social situation would belong to the field of social psychology. This appears also to be essentially the viewpoint of Dunlap who declares,[8] "The psychological study of man is . . . not complete until we have investigated his groupings, and analyzed the mental factors involved therein. This study is social psychology, or group psychology." And further, "Social psychology, therefore, deals not with a specific `social' type of reaction alone, but with the `social' factor in all reactions. It is interested primarily in that which is contributed to our life (i.e., to our total system of reactions), by other people. The distinction between social psychology
(16) and general psychology is, therefore, not an absolute one, but is largely one of emphasis. Social psychology is the study of whatever the stimuli from other persons have contributed to our conscious lives, and to the activity (whether conscious or non-conscious) which results from the conscious life."
CRITICISM AND CONSTRUCTIVE STATEMENT-If we arrange these eight leading definitions of social psychology in the order of the objectivity of the subject matter indicated by each, we find that on the face of it Ellwood's definition appears to be the most subjective, for he says that social psychology studies the psychic factors involved in the social process. He means, however, to include psycho-social as well as purely psychic factors in his study. McDougall is really more subjective, for he would show how the native psychic factors determine social life. However, he introduces the objective side in including the return influence of social life upon the psychic processes. Although Allport states his definition rather objectively in terms of behavior, he develops the theme in his book primarily in terms of the inner psychic mechanisms. Williams, on the other hand, while stating a subjective definition, presents a fairly objective treatment. This is perhaps even truer of Dunlap. In fact one might even speak of his text as a treatise in sociology, although he regards it as a phase or extension of psychology. Bogardus is interested not alone in the psychic mechanisms of intersocial stimulation and response, but also in the objective social and psycho-social products of this process. On the whole, his treatment seems to fall somewhat between that of Ellwood and that of Ross. Gault speaks solely in terms of behavior and in practice includes the objectified psycho-social processes, such as custom and convention, fashion and craze, in his treatment. In this he is very similar to Bogardus and Ellwood, but he probably regards the objectified psycho-social content more as object, while Bogardus treats it more as process. Ross is concerned still more extensively with the object of the psycho-social, bringing in the process side primarily to explain the development or the dissolution of the object aspect.
It will be seen from this brief analysis that the definitions
(17) are not wholly in the same plane, but cut across each other in some degree. Also the wording of the definition does not always adequately indicate the content, although the departure of fact from description in this respect is perhaps not striking. There is on the whole a noticeable similarity among the several definitions. All emphasize directly or indirectly the interrelationship character of the behavior-affording stimuli and the psychic character of the response mechanisms. Some develop the theme from the standpoint of the inner psychic processes -native processes, in McDougall's definition, or the almost equally elusive desires of Dunlap-which cause the overt responses. Others develop it from the standpoint of the behavior as a whole or of the personalities which result from the interrelationships. Others still (notably Ross) are interested in the psycho-social processes, or currents and planes, which arise from this interaction and produce new interactive behavior. Only one of the writers (Allport) would seem to wish to limit the subject matter wholly to the behavior mechanisms of individuals as individuals. Although this writer would appear to neglect somewhat the social stimuli which release individual responses in a social situation and to give inadequate attention to the collective aspects of individual responses, these partial omissions are probably incident to the author's particular purpose in preparing his text book rather than characteristic of his general viewpoint.
DEFINITION AND FIELD--Definitions are of course only formal statements of relationships of the subject matter of a science. They can never be more than an outline map of the territory covered. Some scientists, not without good reason, decry their use altogether, on the ground that they tend too rigidly to delimit the field. The watchword of scientific method is expansion, and the ordinary procedure is to pursue a lead towards knowledge across the frontiers of the sciences when the chase offers to be crowned with success. Sciences, like dynamic and evolving states, are constantly shifting their boundary lines and some of them are becoming vassal to others, while the more vital ones seem to occupy the rôle of peaceful conquerors. However, their wars are ordinarily peaceful ones,
( 18) waged with the weapons of the laboratory and statistical investigation and logic, and their diplomacy is as sober and as sincere as a statistical formula.
Nevertheless, there are some virtues to be attributed to definitions. The chief one, perhaps, is administrative. It gives a sort of patent right and a warrant of respectability to the worker in the field which is characterized or delimited by it. It is also in a measure the statement of the purpose of the investigation in this field. We may therefore be justified in stating as a working definition of our subject the following
Social psychology studies the behavior of individuals in a psycho-social situation. This behavior is valid subject matter for social psychology whether it conditions or is conditioned by other social behavior or responses. It is also concerned with all collective responses, that is, responses of individuals which mutually and reciprocally condition each other and those which are uniform throughout the group, regardless of what environment they arise from. Of course the chief source of stimuli of which social psychology takes cognizance is the psycho-social environment, and the chief type of behavior in which it is interested is collective behavior.
Mutual conditioning of the behavior of a man and a horse would not in any very direct or ordinary sense be subject matter for social psychology. But the conditioning of a man's behavior by a book or by a picture would properly constitute such subject matter, provided this conditioning was determined by the psycho-social content which the book or the picture carried, and not by the mere physical character of these objects. The conditioning of the behavior of two men by each other is properly taken cognizance of by social psychology only when their mutual responses are psychic, which is usually the case. A mere collision of two people, without mutual psychic adjustment, would be social but not psycho-social. If they adjust themselves to each other in some psychic way, such as by dodging, pushing or warning each other by means of gestures or vocal language, there is a psycho-social situation of a low or high degree of complexity, and this behavior is subject matter for social psychology.
PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY-It may be inferred
( 19) from the above discussion that there is not a true psycho-social situation, cognizable by social psychology, unless there are two or more persons in contact with each other through psychic processes or one or more persons in contact with psycho-social environments by means of psychic processes. Where one person alone is in contact with a natural or a physico-social or a bio-social environmental object-not a carrier of a psychosocial object or content-the relationship is not psycho-social and therefore is not subject matter for social psychology. Psychic processes, however, are involved in such a relationship, and these are properly the subject matter of individual psychology as distinguished from social psychology.
Psychology is concerned with the behavior processes occurring in an organism whose responses are conditioned by some phase or factor -Occurring in any type of environment, whether natural or social; physico-social, bio-social, or psychosocial. The essential fact to be noted here is that a stimulus-response process or neural complex is set up or organized with reference to such environmental object or objects. The adjustment of the animal organism to its environment is initiated through the senses. The stimulus-response processes which originate here are either of the nature of automatic behavior patterns, sometimes instinctive, or, as in the case of man, they may consist of neural sets which may come into consciousness as perceptions or concepts, or as feelings or emotions. These cortical sets are also adjustment processes, but they are complex and are more or less delayed in functioning between stimuli and responses.
The psycho-social processes which constitute subject matter for social psychology are of course also subject matter for individual psychology, since they occur in the behavior of individuals. The fact that individuals are in interrelationship with each other, either in the definite organizations of groups or in the more adventitious forms of contact, does not prevent these psycho-social and collective processes from being also individual psychic processes. Thus those who claim social psychology as a branch of individual psychology (e.g., Allport) are in one sense justified. But from another angle—that of the social character of the stimuli, or of the social interstimula-
( 20) -tion which is necessary to secure the individual's adjustment to environment-they are not justified. From this angle it would be equally appropriate to speak of social psychology as a phase of sociology, as Ellwood does.
SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY-All sorts of contacts between persons, whether psychically mediated or merely of a biological character, between persons and impersonal elements of the psycho-social environment, or even between persons and the bio-social or the physico-social environments, are in varying degrees social. The highest forms of social contacts are of course those of a psycho-social character, such as have been under discussion above. Where men discuss peace treaties or plan and put social reform programs through legislatures, or teach the contents of the social sciences, or attend a political convention or a social reception, they are engaging in social activities which are recognized by everybody as such. Such behavior is also taken cognizance of by social psychology, and since the processes involved are psychic, they are subject matter also for psychology.
It is equally, if less obviously, true that the relationship of men to institutions, their responses to the stimulation of customs and traditions, to conventions and mores, and to printed matter and art, are also social. It is immaterial if one term in the relationship is non-human or symbolic, or even invisible, as is the case with the abstract content of the psycho-social environment, provided it is the product of human action or thinking and if it is carried or symbolized by some social environmental object or organization. Likewise, and less obviously, the individual's or the group's relation to bio-social and physico-social objects is also social, but it is not psychosocial, as in the other two types of social relationship, unless these bio-social and physico-social objects are carriers of a psycho-social content, as in the case of books or statuary, of art or memorial tablets, which symbolize psycho-social relationships. Of course these last forms of social relationship are of the lowest order of the class and consequently they are not always recognized as true social relationships. The contacts of individuals with such objects must also be psychic, if it is social; although, as was explained above, it need not be
( 21) psycho-social unless the stimulus as well as the response involves some human or personality content, either concrete or symbolical. If it is not a psychic relationship it must then be bio-physical in character, as is the case where one is accidentally injured by a falling building or a bridge.
DOMINANCE OF THE PSYCHO-SOCIAL-It is apparent from the preceding discussion that the psycho-social relationships are dominant in the human world. Whether we consider social psychology as a branch either of psychology or of sociology or of the social sciences in general, it will be perceived that it constitutes the greater division of these. This is so especially because of the vast development in the complexity of modern life, involving the multiplication of psycho-social contacts or relationships.
An interesting, although an academic, question which was hinted at earlier, might be raised in this connection. Should we regard social psychology as the subsidiary special science which has outgrown its parent sciences, or should we shift the boundary lines and, upon its reaching adulthood, make it the more inclusive or dominant science, while the other aspects of psychology and the social sciences become secondary to it? This does not seem possible, because both psychology and social science are more general in character than social psychology, and should therefore be entitled to characterization as the more general sciences.
TWO TYPES OF EMPHASIS-There is to-day a marked contrast in emphasis between two rival viewpoints in social psychology. One, as was pointed out above, stresses the behavior patterns in the individual nervous system as they occur in response to social stimuli or as they create objective collective response situations. The other places the emphasis upon the organization of the psycho-social environment, especially in its more formal aspect of traditions, conventions, institutions, etc. The forms of behavior emphasized in both of these viewpoints are, in the last analysis, identical with the individual behavior patterns proceeding from a social contact situation and they in turn act as environmental pressures to produce character responses in other individuals.
These two extremes are represented by Allport and Ross.
(22) Perhaps they are not so far apart as they appear to be at first view, but theirs are unquestionably opposite viewpoints. Between these are all sorts of intermediate points of view. How can these differences be explained? They arise naturally enough out of the limitations of the two general sciences in which these two writers were trained. The social psychologist coming to this new field by way of psychology has his attention concentrated upon the specific behavior of individuals and the neuro-psychic mechanisms which account for this behavior on the organic side. He attempts to see the whole process of social interrelationships and social adjustment in terms of the neural or symbolic processes, and the conditioned responses built upon these.
On the other hand, the social psychologist coming to the field from sociology sees the process of social adjustment in terms of the objective social interrelationships and of the uniformities under which these occur. Sociology deals primarily with people in functional relationship as unit organisms and as members of groups and only secondarily with the neuro-psychic and symbolic processes by which these adjustments of organisms and groups are mainly mediated. Conceptualized psycho-social processes, such as traditions, beliefs, conventions, mores, institutions, are abstract verbal pictures of social relationships. They are the symbols of the relationships which have been objectified and which have now become verbal or conceptual stimuli to psycho-social behavior. These symbols, although less concrete and fixed and visible, are as real as the psycho-social relationships themselves which are carried in the actual behavior of persons having contacts in groups. They are symbolical of group relationships which have been, will be, or may never be, but are potential. To the sociologist such psycho-social objects or environmental symbols and stimuli are much more important than they are to the individual psychologist; while the neuro-psychic mechanisms are relatively more important to the latter. The sociologist takes the inner mechanisms for granted, much as the psychologist takes the psycho-social environment for granted. Hence, the objective emphasis of social psychologists with sociological antecedents.
ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF LOGICAL OR CONCEPTUAL DIS-
(23) TINCTIONS--The making of definitions and of classifications in this and the preceding chapter has led us rather frequently to make nominal or logical distinctions which do not exist in concrete behavior. For example, we have spoken of psycho-social and of biological and of bio-physical relationships in the social adjustment situation. These are abstracted relationships. As a matter of fact relationships of objects, whether human or inanimate, occur as wholes. The same is true of adjustments of men to such objects as books or art of any kind. We abstract out for emphasis and analysis the adjustment of the individual on a psychic basis to the psycho-social environmental content of the book. Or we emphasize the relationship of the biological organism of the man to the physical aspect of the book for purposes of analysis only. Such abstraction is a useful, if a fictitious or merely logical, process. Its value consists in the fact that it enables us the better to distribute the environmental pressures into logical systems of social or psycho-social organization. Perceiving this ideal system as something which can be made into an effective control environment we utilize our psychic and biological processes, separate only in abstraction, to make a new behavior adjustment to it. In this way we are constantly reorganizing our personalities and reconstituting our environments by the use of projected logical systems which are not yet actualized in experience. The justification for thus transcending observed facts in our theory of classification is that which must be invoked in the utilization of any hypothesis. The hypothesis is a structure built up conceptually in order to symbolize adjustment patterns that later may be reduced to concrete overt behavior. Nowadays we, in large measure, think our adjustments before we act them. In order to do this effectively and derive the obvious gain which this procedure has to offer, it is necessary to analyze all of the phases of behavior and adjustment into their logical if not actual or concrete elements.
CONCLUSIONS-We may say by way of conclusion that social psychology deals with the psycho-social processes which arise in individual and collective behavior as the result o f human interrelationships on a neuro-psychic plane. It is clearly not possible to divide and isolate human conduct according to the
( 24) classificatory divisions of the sciences. Life and behavior are units, otherwise they would not exist as such in concept or in action. For purposes of analysis and control we break up the unity of behavior into its logical components, and redistribute these conceptually for purposes of forming new control systems which may bring about new habits or behavior systems in individuals and in groups of individuals. But when we speak of psychic and biological planes of behavior, of our physiological or anatomical or psychological or social natures, we are not describing separate and detachable units in our personalities or organisms, but we are outlining different ways of looking at an organic whole of personality, including its behavior. Therefore, when we limit social psychology to associational or collective phenomena occurring in the psychic plane, we mean that we are isolating these aspects of phenomena from those other aspects of the same phenomena which occur in a lower biological plane. It is merely a difference in viewpoint adopted as a device for clearer thinking preliminary to more effective adjustment to our environments.
MATERIALS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING
- Allport, F. H., Social Psychology, Ch. I
- Baldwin, J. M., The Individual and Society, Chs. I, VII
- Bentley, M., "A Preface to Social Psychology," Psychological Monographs, XXI: 1-25
- Dewey, John, "The Need for Social Psychology," Psy. Rev., XXIV :266-77
- Dunlap, K., Social Psychology, Ch. I
- Ellwood, C. A., Introduction to Social Psychology, Ch. I
- ----, The Psychology of Human Society, Ch. I
- Gault, R H., Social Psychology, Ch. I
- Ginsberg, M., The Psychology of Society, Introduction
- Hunter, W. S., General Psychology, Pt. I, Ch. 4
- Kroeber, A. L., "The Possibility of a Social Psychology," Amer. Jour. Sociol., XXIII: 633-50
- McDougall, W., The Group Mind, Ch. I
- Maciver, R. M., Community, pp. 58-63
- Ross, E. A., Social Psychology, Ch. I
- Wallas, G., The Great Society, ch. II
- Warren, H. C., Human Psychology, Ch. I
- Williams, J. M., The Foundations of Social Science, Bks. III, IV
- ----,Our Rural Heritage, Ch. II
