Critical Social Psychology Flashcards
What is social psychology
Emerged in 1930s
The study of interactions of individuals in groups and society.
The scientific investigation of how thoughts feelings and behaviours are influenced by the actual, implied or imagined influence of others (Hogg and Vaughan, 2005)
The study of the individual in the social context (wetherell, 2001)
What is the divide in social psychology
A battle over ideology.
Traditionally social psychology was studied through scientific approaches, the positivist approach.
Academics argued this was wrong way to study a social world, were influenced by sociological approaches. Developed a new branch called critical social psychology
What is experimental social psychology
Employs the scientific method to study behaviour. Regards critical approach as dogma.
Uses hypothetico-detective method,
Claims scientific method is ideologically neutral
Views social world separate from people acting in it.
What is critical social psychology
Heavily influenced by sociology. Claims experimental social psychology not the only way to study social behaviour
Emerged in 1970s and became own branch
Ontology
Branch of philosophy that addresses what things are and their place in the world.
The assumptions made about the nature of the social world
Epistemology
The branch of philosophy that considers the nature of knowledge and how it should be gained
Epistemology and ontology in Experimental approach in social psychology
Mainly uses epistemological approach of Positivism
Suggests there is a straightforward 1-1 relationship between events and people in the social world.
Hypothetico-decuctivism
(Popper 1959)
The science of making deductions from the testing of hypothesis
Induction
Drawing inferences from observations to make generalisations
Facts are recorded and observed
Facts are analysed
Generalisations are inferred about relationships between facts
Generalisations are tested by further observation of facts
Deduction
Based on falsification
A rule or theory is put to test in ways to allow them to be disproved
What methods does social psychology use
Either inductive or deductive
Based on ontology suggesting world is separate from human action
Epistemology is hyopthetico-deductive
Uses inductive and deductive approach to create and falsify hypothesis
Social constructionism
Social reality is created through
Externalisation
Objectification
Internalisation
Externalisation
The way societies make sense of their own world
Society included groups, ethnicities, etc
Objectification
How constructs and social institutions are perceived as real
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Internalisation
Where the objectified world becomes known, understood and adopted to the individual through socialisation
Critical social psychology approach
Social reality is seen as a socially constructed world
Epistemology works from observing people acting in world and making sense of it
Uses retroduction to identify regularities in social action or social phenomena in order to make sense of them
Retroduction
Harre and secord (1972)
Empirical studies is first stage, identify an observed regulatory
Theoretical studies is second stage
Generate explications of the semiotic mechanisms and structure that creates the regularity
Abduction
Working on hunches to construct a new theory
Relies on homing in on irregularities or creating conditions where researchers can be surprised
Critical social psychology epistemology and ontology
Views social actions and phenomena as produced by social structures e.g. Inequality and mechanisms e.g. Patriarchy
Uses retroduction to identify regularities in order to gain insight into the structures that cause them
Considers there is a multiplicity of dynamic and changing social realities
What were two principal worries about social psychology
It was overly reductionist
(By explaining social behaviour on individual level it failed to address social nature of human behaviour)
It was overly positivistic
(Adhered to science model which was distorting, inappropriate and misleading)
What is critical social psychology
Critical psychology is a perspective on psychology that draws extensively on critical theory. Critical psychology challenges mainstream psychology and attempts to apply psychological understandings in more progressive ways, often looking towards social change as a means of preventing and treating psychopathology.
Critical social psychology criticisms of mainstream social psychology
One of critical psychology’s main criticisms of conventional psychology is that it fails to consider or deliberately ignores the way power differences between social classes and groups can affect the mental and physical well-being of individuals or groups of people. It does this, in part, because it tends to explain behavior at the level of the individual.
