Bridging Social Psychology

Benefits of Transdisciplinary Approaches

Paul A.M. Van Lange

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781135609436
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Bridging Social Psychology illuminates the unique contribution the field of social psychology can bring to understanding major scientific and societal problems. The book focuses on illustrating the benefits and costs of bridging social psychology with other fields of psychology, including cognitive, developmental, and personality psychology, as well as other disciplines such as biology, neuroscience and economics. The editor's hope is that the examination of these bridges will result in new theoretical, methodological, and societal benefits. The 65 essays, written by eminent leaders in the field, demonstrate the relationship of social psychology with: (1) biology, neuroscience and cognitive science; (2) personality, emotion, and development; (3) relationship science, interaction, and health; and (4) organizational science, culture, and economics. The book also examines the key assumptions of social psychology, where the field is headed, and its unique contribution to basic theoretical and broad societal questions (e.g. promoting health in society). Section introductions tie the book together. The book concludes with an enlightening Epilogue by Walter Mischel.This book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and advanced students in social psychology wishing to demonstrate the cross-disciplinary aspect of their research. It will also be of interest to those in neighboring fields of psychology, especially personality, organizational, health, cognitive, and developmental psychology, as well as those in neuroscience, biology, sociology, communication, economics, political science, and anthropology. The user-friendly tone makes the book accessible to those with only a basic knowledge of social psychology. The book also serves as a text for advanced courses in social psychology and/or applied psychology. A helpful table, found on the book's Web site, indicates the cross-disciplinary applications addressed in each essay, to make it easier to assign the book in courses.

PART 1
Bridging Social Psychology

INTRODUCTION

This section discusses the cost and benefits of bridging social psychology with other fields of psychology and other academic disciplines. In chapter 1, Paul Van Lange argues and illustrates that social psychology underuses its neighbors, that social psychology is being underused by its neighbors, and that the benefits of bridging social psychology exceeds its costs. Social psychology is argued to be in a perfect position to bridge because “the individual and the social environment” are almost anywhere, and such bridging is argued to be important to understanding classic debates, such as the nature versus nature debate or the person versus situation debate, as well as to understanding broad societal issues.

Chapter 2, authored by Arie Kruglanski, complements and extends chapter 1 by focusing on the importance of theory development. In particular, Arie Kruglanski argues that the relative absence of broad theorizing in social and personality psychology is not only unwarranted on philosophical grounds but it hurts our efforts in the long run, undermining our ability to forge bridges to other social sciences and to have a meaningful voice in the general dialogue about societal issues. It is argued that although as a field social and personality psychology does well in terms of the ideal of Truth, the field is doing less well as far as the ideals of Abstraction (i.e., the gleaning of general principles) and scientific Progress are concerned. The chapter notes that the field is beginning to recognize that this state of affairs needs to change, and concludes that this growing awareness needs to be translated into programs, structures, and institutional policies aimed at encouraging broad theory construction by upcoming generations of social and personality psychologists.

CHAPTER
1
Bridging Social Psychology

Paul A. M. Van Lange Free University, Amsterdam

W^hy bridging social psychology? Are there benefits to connecting with other fields of psychology, such as cognitive or developmental psychology? And how about connecting with other disciplines, such as neurosciences, biology, or economics? Are the potential benefits theoretical, methodological, or both? Are the benefits mutual? Are there costs to bridging with other fields or disciplines? If so, what may be such costs? Why do most grant-giving agencies emphasize the benefits of transdisciplinary approaches, and is this how scientific progress is to be promoted?

Such questions come easily to mind when discussing bridging social psychology—that is, when discussing the cost and benefits of connecting social psychology with other fields of psychology or other scientific disciplines. This should not be too surprising because the topic of bridging social psychology is at the heart of social psychology. It relates to how social psychology is to be defined, it touches upon the history of social psychology, and most importantly, it gives direction to the future of social psychology. And because the field of social psychology is becoming increasingly intertwined with other fields and disciplines, it becomes important to discuss the benefits and costs of bridging social psychology. The volume does so both from a general perspective as well as from the perspective of bridges to (a) biology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, (b) personality, emotion, and development, (c) relationship science, interaction, and health, and (d) organizational science, culture, and economics.

INSPIRATIONS TO BRIDGING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

The project Bridging Social Psychology is inspired by three broad, complementary beliefs. The first belief may be labeled as the underuse of neighbors. It states that insights and knowledge rooted in neighboring fields, disciplines, and do- mains of application are underused in social psychology. This claim seems to be especially true for some periods of insularity in the history of social psychology, and it is important to note that social psychology is increasingly seeking and using knowledge and insights outside of social psychology (e.g., the increasing use of psychophysiological measures, or the increasing attention for emotion). Yet many would agree that the broader questions for which social psychology may be essential (e.g., questions regarding the mind–body problem, questions regarding human nature) are best answered by attending to relatively broad and diverse literatures that complement each other. Perhaps closer to home, a topic such as social development (which is inherently social psychological because it deals with interactions of the individual with the social environment) certainly requires learning about behavior genetics, developmental psychology, personality psychology, and cultural psychology. Or largely social psychological topics, such as aggression or altruism, call for input from, for example, the biological sciences (including ethology), cognitive sciences, neurosciences (e.g., to understand the cognitions and emotions that may underlie it), and developmental psychology, as well as cultural and political sciences and economics (e.g., to understand the institutions that may be effective at sanctioning aggression). One could argue that the success of social cognition is to be partially explained by the fact that the neighbors are “used” (but in a neighborly sense) in ways that promote interesting questions at the interface of social psychology and cognitive psychology (as well as the realization that much cognition centers on social stimuli), the use of sophisticated methodology, and ultimately the fact that some subtle mechanisms underlying key phenomena (e.g., stereotyping) are well illuminated.

The second belief may be labeled as being underused by neighbors. It states that social psychological insights and knowledge are underused in neighboring fields, disciplines, and in various domains of application. Granted, there are several examples of existing bridges with other fields of psychology and other disciplines. For example, there are links and cross-references between social psychology and cognitive psychology, and between social psychology and economics, and there are several examples of fruitful use of social psychological knowledge in domains such as consumer psychology, health psychology, and organizational psychology. At the same time, given that “the individual” and “the social environment” are so central to our understanding of an individual’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviors in these (and other) contexts, the social psychological literature is underused in related fields, disciplines, and domains of application. For example, a strong case can be made for the underuse of social psychology in understanding the determinants of mental health. As noted recently by Hazel Markus (2004, p. 1), “Almost everything in basic social psychology is relevant to mental health and illness but we are the only ones who know this, and even more to the point, we are almost the only ones who know what we do.” Thus, understanding why social psychology seems to be underused is central to the discussion of bridging social psychology.

The third belief may simply be labeled as benefits exceed costs, which is assumed to be true for many bridges. It states that there are several important opportunities and benefits that accrue from bridging with other fields and disciplines that outweigh any risks or costs following from bridging. This belief acknowledges that there are risks and costs to bridging. For example, we need to read a greater variety of journals, need to enlarge research activities (because most fields have their own methodological traditions), and need to attend conferences outside of our own field. Also, it is important to do all of that with care and precision but without losing touch with the central mission of a research project (one is more likely to get lost if more fields or disciplines are involved), or with the strengths of the field of social psychology.

Other complications may be relatively enduring communication (and coordination) problems, because social psychology has a relatively brief but strong history in which concepts are advanced, traditions are created, and implicit norms and rules have been established. One needs only to compare an average journal article in a biology, economics, or health journal with a prototypical social psychological article, and some differences are immediately clear. For example, social psychology articles tend to have much longer introductions (and more references) with fairly detailed attention to prior research and theorizing, and are more likely to report multiple studies, in which convenience samples of university students and experimental studies are the rule rather than the exception. Last but not least, for many situations, costs precede benefits, thus calling for investment from individual researchers as well as from the universities. As to the latter, the universities at large need to provide some infrastructure for bridging to work. The first task is, of course, to think hard about a somewhat flexible infrastructure in which bridges are likely to be built.How exactly to do that is beyond the scope of this introduction, but as early research on acquaintance and friendship revealed (Newcomb, 1961), it takes interaction for acquaintance to develop. Thus, promoting possibilities for natural ways of interaction and intellectual exchange is perhaps most important.

Although there are important risks and/or costs associated with bridging social psychology, there may be actually good measures to reduce or overcome at least some of the risks and costs. For example, working with colleagues from other fields and disciplines, sharing expertise, and dividing tasks and labor may be an effective way to address topics from a transdisciplinary perspective (e.g., Kahneman, 2004; Taylor, 2004). I return to the benefits and costs later, but for now, it suffices to note that there is an increasing (although implicit) belief that the benefits of bridging social psychology with several other fields and disciplines outweigh the costs of bridging. National science foundations increasingly make it part of their policy to reward transdisciplinary activities, in the form of supporting interdisciplinary research, teaching programs, and interdisciplinary research centers. (Whether such policy is always translated into concrete practice, is a different matter, of course). Also, there is an increasing tendency to publish books and special issues of journals that address the issue of transdisciplinary approaches to various topics, such as intentionality, social development, or trust. Although the focus of social psychology may have been inward, there is certainly an increasing attention for linking own research to methods and insights that are rooted in other fields or disciplines. As noted by Brewer, Kenney, and Norem (2000, p. 2) in the introduction to a special issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review on new directions of interdisciplinary research:

The history of the field has been marked by periods of relative insularity and periods of relative expansiveness and outward focus. The last few years of the 20th century marked the beginning of a major shift in the direction of renewed interest in personality and social psychology as a central node in an interdisciplinary network with rich connections to other subdisciplines of psychology and to the life sciences and social sciences more broadly.

BENEFITS OF BRIDGING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

It may not be a rare event that people get together and work together, simply because “let’s work together” sounds so great. However, such working together is unlikely to be very successful if there are no real benefits of working together. In the following, I briefly discuss four benefits of bridging.

Major Scientific Problems Call for Bridging. What are some of the most pervasive or “biggest” scientific problems that (social) psychology has faced in the past?Oneclassic scientific problem centers on the mind–body problem, andthe existence and functions of conscience and “free will” in relation to the brain and behavior. It subsumes topics such as awareness, automaticity, and intentionality, all of which have strong implications for theorizing at different levels of analysis. Although such issues can to some degree be illuminated with methods derived from disciplines such as neurosciences and cognitive sciences, the answers to such problems clearly require insights from several fields of psychology, including social psychology. Because so much of the brain, of the mind, and of free will is social in nature, as are the motivations (e.g., interpersonal attraction or interpersonal conflict) and emotions (e.g., shame and guilt) that accompany brain activity, it is should be clear that the mind–body problem cannot really be addressed without “input” from social psychology. For example, if biased judgment and deceit can occur without any conscience or awareness, but triggered by subtle activation (e.g., by activating some parts of the brain), then such interpersonal actions are not only part of the mind–body problem, they are largely social psychological as well. Moreover, the topic of lying and deceit has strong implications for several other disciplines, such as business (e.g., business ethics), law and justice, and political science.Acomplementary classic problem is the problem of human nature (“Are people good or bad by nature?”), which also benefits from input of all fields of psychology, with strong implications for theorizing in an- thropology, economics, and political science (e.g., for the way in which effective groups, organizations, and governments should be structured, and for theories about effective leadership).

A major scientific problem that is perhaps more closely connected to psychology is the nature versus nurture controversy, which has inspired considerable debate, theory, and research, and involves expertise and knowledge from various fields, such as biological psychology, personality, developmental psychology, and social psychology, and disciplines such as biology (including ethology), medicine, and anthropology. As it turns out, promising solutions to this debate suggest that much of nurture can only be expressed and developed via social circumstances—nature via nurture. Indeed, there is increasing evidence that nature can only be revealed (or not) via nurture, that is, through circumstances that provide the opportunities (and constraints) for nature-based tendencies to express, grow, and develop.

A long-standing debate even closer to social psychology is the person–situation debate, the controversy of whether behavior is primarily caused by the person or by the situation. Solutions to this debate, too, emphasize that both the psychology of the person and the psychology of situation are important to understanding feelings, thoughts, and behavior (Mischel, 2004). As for the nature versus nurture debate, one needs to understand “the person” and “the social environment” if one seeks to understand various social psychological phenomena. Similarly, it is likely that contemporary scientific problems that touch on the interface of cognition and affect will benefit from the input from various fields and disciplines.

That major scientific problems call for bridging is not to imply that all researchers and theorists should direct our attention to major scientific problems. On the contrary, much of the success of social psychology is due to the fact that the field is strongly oriented toward experimental methods and rather specific questions. For example, one of the most influential papers in social psychology is Taylor and Brown’s (1988) article on positive illusion and well-being. This articles provides a comprehensive review of specific laboratory studies (e.g., on social comparison, on social judgment processes) as well as large field studies (e.g., among cancer patients, among chronically depressed individuals). In combination, these studies provide support for the general notion that positive, illusory beliefs about the self, rather than realistic beliefs about the self, tend to be associated with mental health. (Incidentally, this article by Taylor and Brown may also serve as a perfect demon- stration of the utility of bridging social psychology, personality, and clinical and health psychology). Thus, focusing on specific questions (and specific procedures) is not bad at all, especially if it contributes to understanding the major (social) psychological problems.

But what exactly constitutes majo...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• PREFACE
• PART 1: BRIDGING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
• PART 2: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: GENERAL VIEWS OF BRIDGING
• PART 3: BRIDGES WITH BIOLOGY, NEUROSCIENCE, AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE
• PART 4: BRIDGES WITH PERSONALITY, EMOTION, AND DEVELOPMENT
• PART 5: BRIDGES WITH RELATIONSHIP SCIENCE, INTERACTION, AND HEALTH
• PART 6: BRIDGES WITH ORGANIZATIONAL SCIENCE, CULTURE, AND ECONOMICS
• PART 7: EPILOGUE
• AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES