Dennis Fox’s Weblog

This is the final posting for now on my Social Psychology’s Essence series. To recap, the purpose is to come up with a tentative short list — short enough to have some hope of getting it across to students — of what I think an undergraduate should take away from a mainstream introductory social psychology course (as opposed to a course in critical social psychology). Long after the details disappear, and assuming most students don’t go on to more advanced courses, what would I be glad to see my students retain in the back of their minds? This list is a work in progress. It represents my thinking about social psychology and related areas, but I’m writing this as I go along and don’t suggest this is the final word. As noted previously, feedback is welcome.

Previous postings proposed four items:

1. Identifying and Questioning Empirical Assumptions
2. Imagining and Exploring Alternatives
3. Behavior has Multiple Interacting Causes
4. Maximizing Individuality and Community

The fifth and final item is this:

5. Social Psychology as Technology

The social psychology of technology gets some attention, but what I have in mind is the opposite — the use of social psychological knowledge and methods as a form of technology. Social psychology textbooks often note the ethical dilemma facing researchers who discover techniques that might be used in negative ways, but rarely delve deeply  because, of course, a social psychology class is supposed to teach students that responsible researchers do a good job balancing the pros and cons. Science marches on.

Most textbooks emphasize social psychology’s positive uses — to help resolve environmental problems, for example, and to uncover and resist social influence, create cooperative work groups, reduce prejudice, and more. All this is true, but an honest course would equally emphasize the opposite — how social psychological knowledge deceives consumers, represses dissent, increases conformity, and maintains unjust societal conditions. At minimum, students should get a better sense of just why social psychologists are recruited to work in advertising, government, and the CIA. Indeed, it’s often this sort of discussion that brings home to students how useful social psychology really can be. If the CIA wants social psychologists, there must be something to it.

My own take on most forms of technology is pretty negative. I don’t really buy the argument that, because knowledge is neutral, any technology can be used for good or bad depending on who controls it, and so the goal should be to make sure the right people are in charge. Instead, I think many forms of technology inevitably lead primarily in negative directions with horrendous consequences for individuals, societies, and the planet itself. Of course we can use that technology for positive uses as well — the Internet helps us organize against repression, television exposes things elites want hidden, social psychological principles help activists organize more effective campaigns. But anything we can do, they can do better. And, more to the point, the technology itself changes society without bothering to subject those changes to democratic debate and decision making. It changes us. With more technology, maybe we become them.

It remains an open question whether social psychology can create a technology of liberation that’s not simply overpowered by its technology of social control and manipulation. Latin American liberation psychology is one important component of critical psychology’s critique of mainstream  psychology. I remain pessimistic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 5th, 2006 at 11:31 am and is filed under Critical Psychology, Social Psychology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.