Discuss the historical developments of social psychology.

 The formation of pre-conditions of social psychology is as a whole the same as the development of any other scientific discipline. The socio-psychological ideas originally took shape within the realm of philosophy and then gradually branched off from the system of psychological knowledge. First we will briefly discuss the social thought before the advent of social science and then discuss the second stage of the development of social psychology which is deemed to be “more productive.

Social Thought Before the Advent of Social Science

Two earlier forms of social thought over the centuries are Platonic and Aristotelian.

Platonic thought emphasised the primacy of state over the individual who had to be educated to become truly social.

Aristotelian thought states that human being is social by nature and nature can be trusted to enable individuals to live together and to enter personal relationships from which families, tribes and ultimately the state will naturally develop.

In modern times these two traditions of social thought have been known as socio centred approach and individual centred approach. Socio centred approach emphasises the determining function of social structures (systems, institutions and groups) for individual experience and behaviour. According to the individual centred approach social systems are said to be explicable in terms of individual processes and functions. For Hegel (1970-1831), the German philosopher, the state is not only the ultimate form of society but the incarnation of the objective social mind of which individual minds are active participants. The notion of Group Mind derived from Hegel’s supra-individual nature.

Social psychology from its beginning has been defined as the scientific study of the individual in the social context. Individualism has been an inherent property of the discipline. Individualistic doctrine says that all the explanations of individual social phenomena are to be rejected unless they are expressed in terms of individual. Individualism in psychology has been characterised and criticised for the self centred denial of the other. Individualism has appeared in two forms in sociological thought:

Hedonism: People act in order to secure and maintain pleasure and to avoid and reduce pain.

Utilitarianism: The doctrine that advocates the pursuit of the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

For most modern theories of conditioning and of motivation, the underlying ideas of individual satisfaction (reinforcement, reward, reduction of stress, of dissonance, uncertainty) are variations of the pleasure or utility principle. Utility and satisfaction are important constructs involved in many social psychological theories.

From Machiavelli (1513) and Thomas Hobbes (1651) the concept of power and its role in social relationships returned in social psychology. The concept of social power (social influence) found its proper frame of reference in the field theory and social exchange theory. In Lewinian field theory ‘power’ became the term for the potential to influence others while control and influence refer to the power of action. Research areas where power has been studied are: aggression, conformity to group pressure and obedience to authority, and power in language.

Modern social psychology was also influenced by the developments in the nineteenth century in two major areas: sociology and theory of evolution. We will discuss these influences later under the titles: social psychology and other disciplines and the influence of evolutionary theory will be discussed in current trends in social psychology.

The Second Stage of Development: Social Psychology Emerges as a Discipline

In the process of branching off from the psychology as a separate discipline, three moments are important to be outlined (Galina Andreyeva 1990):

The requirement concerning the solution of socio-psychological problems which aroused in various related sciences.

The processes involved in the separation of socio-psychological problems within the two parent disciplines: psychology and sociology.

Finally, the description of the first forms of independent socio- psychological knowledge.

In the mid 19th century, the first forms of socio-psychological theories that appeared, three were most important in terms of their influence: people’s psychology, mass psychology and the theory of instincts of social behaviour. These theories developed in the background of philosophical and descriptive tradition, hence their nature was speculative and abstract.

People’s Psychology

People’s psychology developed as one of the first forms of socio-psychological theory in Germany in the mid 19th century. Most outstanding creators of people’s psychology were Moritz Lazarus (1824-1903) and Heymann Steinthal (1823- 1893). In 1859 the journal People’s Psychology and Linguistics was founded in which the article by Lazarus and Steinthal entitiled “Introductory Thoughts on People’s Psychology” was printed. The article expressed the idea that the main force of history is the people, or the ‘spirit of the whole’, which can be seen in art, religion, language, myths, customs etc. The individual consciousness is only its product, a link in a certain mental connection. The task of social psychology was to perceive the psychological essence of the spirit of the people and discover the laws that guide the spiritual activity of the people.

The views of Wilhem Wundt (1832-1920) furthered the development of People’s psychology. Wundt (1900) proposed that psychology consists of two parts: physiological psychology and people’s psychology (Völkerpsychologie: German word for people’s psychology). Physiological psychology, in his views was an experimental discipline, but experimentation is not useful for the study of higher mental processes: thinking and language. For the areas like language, myths, customs and art people’s psychology need to adopt other methods.

The views proposed by Wundt were criticised by Vygotsky. People’s psychology considered language, myths, customs, art and religion as objectives of study. Vygotsky called these clots of ideology or crystals. The task of psychology he proposed was not to study these crystals but the solution itself. He opposed the thought that social psychology should study the mentality of collective personality. The personality of the individual, he said, is also social and is therefore an object of study in social psychology. Social psychology focuses on the mentality of the separate individual and collective psychology – on personal psychology under collective manifestation (e.g. army and church). Social psychology is the study of cultural and historical determinati0on of mentality. Lev Vygotsky dealt with two questions directly related to the development of social psychology. The higher mental functions (arbitrary memory, active attention, abstract thinking and volitional act) could not be considered immediate functions of the brain, roots of these functions lie in social condition. He expounded upon the idea of cultural historical determination of all mental processes.

Mass Psychology

This theory emerged in France in the latter half of the 19th century. The creators of mass psychology Italian Lawyer Scipio Sighele (1868-1913) and French sociologist Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) began with Gabrial Trade’s (1843- 1904) basic ideas on the role of irrational movements in social behaviour and the role of imitation. According to Le Bon any accumulation of people represented the idea of the mass with depersonalisation and predominance of emotions over intellect, the general loss of intellect and the loss of the sense personal responsibility. The events like mass movements in the late 19th and early 20th century, rapid social and economic changes due to industrialisation and urbanisation wereconducive to mass psychology but like people’s psychology it did not develop within the context of academic psychology. It did not have any significant consequences as regards the future of social psychology.

The First Textbooks of Social Psychology

The year 1908 is considered to the year of final emergence of social psychology as an independent scientific discipline. This year two books appeared with the title social psychology: An Introduction to Social psychology by William McDougall and the other Social Psychology by sociologist Edward A. Ross. Before these two works in 1897, James Mark Baldwin’s work, Social and Ethical Interpretation in Mental Development was published in New York which can be considered as one of the first systematic manuals in social psychology.

According to E. A. Ross social psychology deals with uniformities in feeling, belief, volition and action. Uniformities were to be explained by the capacities for imitation and suggestion operating among individuals collectively. McDougall’s theory proposed that inborn instincts are the cause of social behaviour. In his views, tendencies of imitation and suggestion are rooted in their biological nature. Imitation supposedly grew out of non-specific innate tendency, whereas suggestion was seen stemming from an instinct to submit to a prestigious person or symbol.

In spite of great popularity of McDougall’s ideas, they played a negative role in the history of science. Recognition of instincts as the motive force behind the social behaviour gave importance to the irrational and unconscious motives. Human understanding and thought processes were not given much attention. The overcoming of the theory of instincts is deemed to be an important milestone in the formation of scientific social psychology.

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