"Panic": the impact of Le Bon's crowd psychology on U.S. military thought

The controversial crowd psychology of Gustave Le Bon has been both praised as an incisive contribution to social theory and also condemned as a doctrine of irrationality and mass manipulation associated with fascism. New archival documentation now demonstrates that Le Bon exercised significant influence on U.S. military thinking and practice through World War II. Army writings and officer training on morale, leadership, and battlefield psychology rested substantially on his theory of crowds, particularly regarding races and panic. Le Bon's racial psychology took on additional importance when the African-American 92 nd Infantry Division panicked during combat in Italy. This new evidence offers an excellent case study of the direct and enduring impact of a peculiar type of social psychology on the institutional culture of the army from the classrooms at the Army War College to the battlefield itself.     

Subjectivity,Not Personality: Combining Discourse Analysis and Psychoanalysis

Mainstream psychology can often be criticized for turning the liberal concerns of psychologists into conservative practices focusing on the individual. In the United Kingdom, the discursive turn in social psychology has been marked by an audacious body of work critical of cognitive attempts to theorize the social. A particular psycho‐discursive strand has emerged, which combines discourse analysis and psychoanalytic theory in an attempt to change both the subject of, and the subjectivity (re)produced by, mainstream psychology. This paper reviews three different psycho‐discursive approaches: (i) Hollway and Jefferson's Free Association Narrative Interview method; (ii) Billig's Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology; (iii) Parker's Lacanian excursions into social psychology. In these psycho‐discursive approaches, ‘subjectivity’ replaces personality as the key theoretical construct where the social forms part of who we are and these approaches seem to offer social psychologists the theoretical tools to start to appreciate how individual personality and social context are intimately connected.     

How can Asian social psychology succeed globally?†

The present article is inspired by the provocative ideas of Atsumi, Hofstede, Leung, and Ward expressed in this Special Issue on the past achievements, current status, and future opportunities and challenges of Asian social psychology as an international (vs a regional) endeavour. I believe that the success of Asian social psychology as a new voice and emerging perspective in social psychology hinges upon several factors: (i) adoption of an international (vs regional) outlook; (ii) not letting arbitrary geographical or intellectual boundaries restrict creative expansion of research ideas; and (iii) striving to craft a global identity with an Asian character by developing communicable theories that describe and explain important Asian social psychological phenomena for the benefits of Asia and beyond.     

Walking as a ‘Radicalized’ Critical Psychological Method? A Review of Academic,Artistic and Activist Contributions to the Study of Social Environments

The study of social environments is a neglected site of research not only in psychology, but across academic disciplines ranging from human geography to cultural studies. This paper will review contributions to studying social environments through academic writings, situationism and psychogeographical groups. It will be argued that disorientating walking practices can be used as a means to reflect on experiences of places in order to begin to think how social environments could be radically changed. It is important to question the taken for granted ways that people make sense of urban environments. It is argued that psychogeographic practice can be used to extend qualitative epistemologies and methods to argue for a ‘turn to place’ in psychology and to open up new methods and approaches in critical psychology. Finally, the implications for radicalizing critical psychological research methods will be considered in relation to the current status of critical psychology, which suffers from an apathetic vision of radicalism and criticality.     

Collective Affordances

Abstract

This article develops an ecological framework for understanding collective action. This is contrasted with approaches familiar from the collective intentionality debate, which treat individuals (with collective intentions) as fundamental units of collective action. Instead, we turn to social ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory and argue that they provide a promising framework for understanding collectives as the central unit in collective action. However, we submit that these approaches do not yet appreciate enough the relevance of social identities for collective action. To analyze this aspect, we build on key insights from social identity theory and synthesize it with embodied and ecological accounts of perception and action. This results in the proposal of two new types of affordances. For an individual who enacts her “embodied social identity” of being a member of a particular collective, there can be what we call embodied social identity affordances. Moreover, when several individuals dynamically interact with each other against the background of their embodied social identities, this might lead to the emergence of a collective, which we understand as a dynamically constituted and ecologically situated perception-action system consisting of several individuals enacting relevant embodied social identity affordances. Building on previous work in social ecological psychology, we suggest that there can be genuine collective affordances, that is, affordances whose subject is not an individual, but a collective.     

Notes for a Critical Personality Psychology: Making Room under the Critical Psychology Umbrella

Inspired by the liberation psychologist Martin‐Baró who provocatively defined personality as that of which individuals can be robbed in conditions of social injustice and research psychologists in training whose appreciation of the possibilities of personality psychology has been limited by the dominance of trait approaches, this paper claims that we need and can practice a critical personality psychology. Conceptual and methodological tools for such an enterprise are identified in two arenas of current research: the study of narratives and new forms of history in personality psychology. Within critical personality psychology, personality is understood to be an expression of (i) a multifaceted organization that includes individual, interpersonal, social, cultural, and political contexts; (ii) individual and social change; and (iii) the moral dimensions of human psychology. Notes on future directions draw on areas of inquiry within and outside personality psychology to insure a place under the critical psychology umbrella.     

Critical notes and reflections on ‘social representations’

Moscovici has ushered in the ‘era of social representations widely welcomed as a European alternative to what are increasingly regarded as the shortcomings of mainline American social psychology. The rapid and enthusiastic adoption by many psychologists of Moscovici's theoretical approach has not so far evoked a great deal of critical appraisal of the ideas he put forward. The present paper seeks to make a start in jilling this gap by an examination of the conceptual structure and some of its underlying assumptions. There appear to be a number of internal inconsistencies and some doubt concerning the logical status of social representations’ It is suggested that clarification of such issues, together with the establishment of closer links with the findings of neighbouring disciplines, would help to strengthen what is undoubtedly one of the most stimulating new departures in the field.     

当前积极心理学变革的新趋向及理论价值

近20年来西方积极心理学以其独特的研究视角曾经吸引过全球人的目光,被誉为是理论心理学研究的一个新的重要方向。积极心理学主要围绕着“一个中心三个支撑点” 来开展相关的研究,即以主观幸福感为中心,以积极体验、积极人格、积极社会制度为支撑点。在强硬的现实面前,具有“理想主义情怀”的积极心理学也面临着许多困境与挑战。近年来西方一些学者正在寻求突破积极心理学的瓶颈性因素,围绕着“美德、意义、韧性和幸福”这四大支柱打造新的版本,促进积极心理学理论研究的可持续发展和升级换代。     

... In relation to theological education

Summary This article has emphasized the ways in which theological education and pastoral psychologycan be optimally related in the future. It has been suggested that this future calls for a shift from purely medical models to field theory models of learning pastoral psychology. A shift from individualistic to social psychological data will be required. A new emphasis upon definitelypastoral types of research is urgently needed. An assimilation of technology in the media of teaching and learning pastoral psychology must be developed. And, finally, a shift from a passive to an aggressive mode of pastoral action is the unexplored region for the future adventures of pastoral psychologists.     

Asian social psychology: Achievements, threats, and opportunities

A scan of citation impact suggests that Asian social psychologists have made significant contributions in three areas: indigenous research, culture and social behaviour, and in several topics in social psychology. An analysis of the most cited articles published in Asian Journal of Social Psychology ( AJSP ) in 1998–2002 in March 2005 reveals that most papers are concerned with culture, with a focus on either popular topics in the West or indigenous concepts. Asian social psychology seems to be closely associated with cultural issues, but it still lacks unique theoretical contributions, and the number of internationally visible scholars is limited and is mostly confined to East Asia. However, Asian cultures provide a fertile ground for identifying new constructs. Many Asian universities are now under pressure to internationalize, which will motivate more academics to participate in Asian conferences and publish in AJSP . To develop Asian social psychology, effort should be focused on nurturing the next generation of Asian social psychologists, who not only need an international perspective, but also ambition and creativity.     

The incompleteness of ethogenics

The [ethogenic] analysis of human social behaviour proposed by Harré and Secord is based on the idea of man as a freely choosing purposeful agent, contrasted with the mechanistic, or deterministic, conception of man which is the basis of most traditional research and theory in social psychology. The idea that a person's social behaviour is governed by social rules is central in the ethogenic scheme. But the same idea is also implicit in much traditional research and theory. A consideration of the concept of social rule in the study of social behaviour helps to clarify the relation in which ethogenics stands to traditional social psychology and highlights a fundamental difference between them in their respective fields of enquiry. Harré and Secord's claim that the ethogenic paradigm should replace traditional models is misplaced because the two approaches are demonstrably compatible. Indeed, the necessity of a causal mechanistic account can actually be derived from certain assumptions of the ethogenic paradigm itself. It is shown that important headway may be made in social psychology, particularly in relation to the study of physical and mental illness, by acknowledging the compatibility of the two approaches.     

Small‐Group Research in Social Psychology: Topics and Trends over Time

Research on small groups has a long history within social psychology. Unfortunately, interest in studying social processes within small groups has diminished over time despite predictions of its resurgence. Moreland, Hogg, and Hains (1994 ) computed an index of interest in small groups in the major social psychology journals between 1975 and 1993, finding an increase in the mid 1980s and early 1990s. This increase was due largely to the influence of European and social cognition approaches, which do not focus on intragroup processes. We replicated their procedures through 2006 and found that these trends have persisted. Over half of the group‐related research published from 1975 to 2006 involved intergroup relations (e.g., social identity, stereotyping), whereas other topic areas (i.e., group composition, structure, performance, conflict, and ecology) that involve intragroup processes were largely ignored. The implications of these trends for the fields of small groups and social psychology are discussed.     

Approaching Nature, ‘Sustainability’ and Ecological Crises from a Critical Social Psychological Perspective

This article considers the potential contribution of critical social psychology to the study of the relationship between humans and nature, particularly in terms of the role of human activities in ecological degradation. That human behaviour is having a profound impact on global climate and related phenomena has garnered broad scientific consensus and is communicated to the public in increasingly sophisticated ways. Psychology has been increasingly drawn upon by policy makers, pressure groups and related institutions in this context, in the hope of understanding, predicting and shaping behaviour and lifestyles towards more sustainable ends. In the past few decades, cognitive behaviourist models have dominated research and policy agendas concerned with identifying barriers to, and/or promoting ‘environmentally sustainable’ or ‘pro‐environmental’ behaviour. Yet despite the emergence of critical work, to date, there has been very little work in this field explicitly under the banner of critical social psychology. In this article, a brief outline of some of the tenets of critical social psychology is followed by a consideration of how these principles have been taken up in existing cross‐disciplinary critical approaches to the interrelated issues of environment, sustainability and human behaviour and the potential contribution of critical social psychology in these areas.     

A Culture‐Inclusive,Socially Engaged Agenda for Creativity Research

The 50 years anniversary of The Journal of Creative Behavior offers a festive occasion to reflect on the recent history of the field as well as look toward its future. From the standpoint of sociocultural psychology, I celebrate the growing importance of society and culture within creativity research. However, I also note an important distinction between “social inside” and “social outside” approaches. A truly culture‐inclusive field would go beyond the view of culture as “container” and explore the ways in which sociocultural contexts actively participate in creativity. At the same time, it would examine how creative action, in turn, shapes society and culture, particularly at times of growing intolerance, nationalism, and inequality. A socially engaged agenda for creativity research is timely both conceptually and practically. Taken together, these two pillars could not only advance but also fundamentally transform our field, carrying it for the next 50 years and beyond.     

Dire straits: the divisive legacy of the 1898 Cambridge anthropological expedition.

Bartlett's claim that the Cambridge anthropological expedition of 1898 to the Torres Strait "put a social and ethnological stamp upon Cambridge psychology" does not bear close examination. Rivers pursued his interests in both anthropology and psychology but came to regard them as largely independent pursuits. Myers, through the influence of Rivers, came to identify himself primarily as a psychologist. McDougall was very quickly marginalized. There were two occasions when the promise of the Torres Strait began to be fulfilled: first, the reunion of Rivers, Myers, McDougall, and Seligman, all medically trained, at Maghull Hospital to help in the treatment of shell-shocked soldiers; second, Bartlett's attempt, early in his career, to establish a sociocultural psychology. However, the remarkable "academy" at Maghull was disbanded at the end of the war, and Bartlett, in his attempt to promote the "upstart subject" of psychology at Cambridge, increasingly came to distance his department from social and ethnological concerns. There is a neglected legacy of the Torres Strait expedition, the curious belief that the methods of experimental psychology, and indeed psychophysics, could (somehow) be foundational to the human sciences. This legacy has served both to suggest that psychology must have something to do with anthropology, while perpetually deferring any actual integration between the two disciplines.     

Lacan and Social Psychology

Jacques Lacan kept silent on the topic of social psychology, never referring to it, not even to criticize it. But this has not impeded Lacanian theory from inspiring diverse critical approaches to social psychology. After reviewing these approaches, the article examines Lacan's different explicit positions with respect to psychology, the social and what he called psychology of the social field. This allows us to infer the implicit manner in which Lacan would establish his silent relationship with social psychology. On the basis of this relationship, we outline an original proposal for a Lacanian critical approach to social psychology that might lead to an alternative transindividual metapsychology. Our proposal precisely differs from others in that it attempts to consider and elucidate Lacan's own attitude regarding social psychology.     

‘How the other half lives’?: Taking a critical approach to the social psychology of economic inequality and extreme wealth

The negative impact of economic inequality on social issues and wellbeing is of importance to social psychology that historically has an interest in social justice. Social Identity Theory is explored as an approach that acknowledges the wider context of social issues. The use of experiments encounters challenges in categorizing wealth and how individuals account for extreme wealth. Mainstream research agendas in psychology are not neutral and draw upon current ideology (such as neoliberalism) that can often maintain inequality. These difficulties are addressed by Critical Social Psychology driven by a social justice agenda that challenges the acceptance of neoliberal values. The application of Critical Social Psychology to wealth inequality is demonstrated with research using UK media data. Critical feminist psychology is discussed to explore the role of class and how to challenge the stigmatization of working-class people. Finally, this paper outlines how Discursive Psychology addresses how extreme wealth and the practices of the super-rich are warranted. A discursive approach questions the acceptance of wealth inequality as an everyday assumption and demonstrates how dominant discourse draws upon individualism. Furthermore, Discursive Psychology has examined how accountability for problematic practices, such as tax avoidance that maintain inequality, are managed in media broadcasts.     

Archaic man meets a marvellous automaton: posthumanism,social robots,archetypes

Posthumanism is associated with critical explorations of how new technologies are rewriting our understanding of what it means to be human and how they might alter human existence itself. Intersections with analytical psychology vary depending on which technologies are held in focus. Social robotics promises to populate everyday settings with entities that have populated the imagination for millennia. A legend of A Marvellous Automaton appears as early as 350 B.C. in a book of Taoist teachings, and is joined by ancient and medieval legends of manmade humanoids coming to life, as well as the familiar robots of modern science fiction. However, while the robotics industry seems to be realizing an archetypal fantasy, the technology creates new social realities that generate distinctive issues of potential relevance for the theory and practice of analytical psychology.