Some Reflections on the Golden Age of Interdisciplinary Social Psychology
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Some Reflections on the Golden Age of Interdisciplinary Social Psychology William H. Sewell Social Psychology Quarterly, Volume 52, Issue 2 (Jun., 1989), 88-97. Your use of the JSTOR database indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use. A copy of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use is available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html, by contacting JSTOR at [email protected], or by calling JSTOR at (888)388-3574, (734)998-9101 or (FAX) (734)998-9113. No part of a JSTOR transmission may be copied, downloaded, stored, further transmitted, transferred, distributed, altered, or otherwise used, in any form or by any means, except: (1) one stored electronic and one paper copy of any article solely for your personal, non-commercial use, or (2) with prior written permission of JSTOR and the publisher of the article or other text. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. Social Psychology Quarterly is published by American Sociological Association. Please contact the publisher for further permissions regarding the use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/asa.html. Social Psychology Quarterly 01989 American Sociological Association JSTOR and the JSTOR logo are trademarks of JSTOR, and are Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For more information on JSTOR contact [email protected]. 02001 JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/ Fri Aug 17 09:49:25 2001 Social Psychology Quarterly 1989, Vol. 52, No. 2, 88-97 Some Reflections on the Golden Age of Interdisciplinary Social Psychology WILLIAM H. SEWELL* In a perceptive article published a decade present stance of symbolic interactionism and ago, "The Three Faces of Social Psychol- of social structure and personality than House ogy ," James S. House (1977) pointed out that saw a decade ago, particularly now that many in the 25 years including and following World symbolic interactionists are using formal War I1 there was a great wave of enthusiasm observation, sample surveys, and multivariate for interdisciplinary social psychology, which analysis in their research. led to the establishment of several significant This brief review of House's article serves training programs and research centers in as the background for my own reflections on some of the major universities in the United what some consider the Golden Age of States. By the mid-1960s, however, this interdisciplinary social psychology. I wish to seeming Golden Age had largely vanished; by elaborate on how it came about and on the the mid-1970s it had been replaced almost forces that led to its demise. I agree with completely by three separate and largely House that the intellectual and institutional isolated divisions of social psychology: psy- contexts in which each faction developed chological social psychology, focusing on probably predetermined its eventual return to individual psychological processes as related its original disciplinary moorings when the to social stimuli and emphasizing the use of interdisciplinary arrangements faltered. There- laboratory experimental methods; symbolic fore, I wish to reflect on the possible reasons interactionism, concentrating on face-to-face why these programs failed to become incor- social interaction processes and using partici- porated into the institutional structure of our pant observation and informal interviewing in universities, in contrast to several postwar natural settings; and psychological sociology, interdisciplinary programs in the natural centering on the reciprocal relationship be- sciences. tween social structure and individual social psychological behavior and relying mainly on survey methods. House asserted further that BACKGROUND these factions grew out of the institutional and I am neither a qualified historian of science intellectual contexts in which social psychol- nor a sociologist of knowledge, but I was one ogy originally developed; that the three of the many actors in the movement and factions have grown farther apart over the last participated in almost every aspect of it, two decades; and that there is great need for including its successes and its failures. Thus I more interaction between them, if a vital and feel emboldened to share my reflections. Like well-rounded social psychology is to develop. most of the other participants, I had com- For the most part I agree with House's pleted my graduate training in sociology formulations and conclusions, although I still before World War 11, with a major interest prefer the traditional label "social structure but inadequate training in social psychology. and personality" to his term "psychological There really were few places where one could sociology" to describe what most of us do. obtain much training in social psychology in Like Sheldon Stryker (1987), I also see a the mid-1930s; Minnesota, where I did my somewhat less clear distinction between the Ph.D. in sociology was not one of them. By * Remarks on the occasion of the presentation of the ' At that time the leading centers for social psychology Cooley-Mead Award, Section on Social Psychology, training were Chicago, Columbia, and Harvard, but even American Sociological Association, August 24, 1988. at these institutions the offerings were not extensive. At The writer wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments Minnesota I took reading courses with Clifford Kirk- of Archie 0.Haller, Robert M. Hauser, David R. Heise, patrick and sat in on a course in social psychology in the Robert Kahn, H. Andrew Michener, W. Richard Scott, psychology department. This course was devoted largely and William H. Sewell Jr. to group differences in ability and attitudes, and gave SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE GOLDEN AGE 89 the time I was called to service in World War psychiatrist, and sampling statisticians, who I1 as a reserve officer in the U.S. Navy, I was were to cany out the study, had assembled in already a fairly well-established sociologist. I Tokyoe3We began immediately to review the had read widely in social psychology and had purposes and the design of the survey, and we done research and teaching in the field. On made many important revisions in both the entering active military service, I was as- conceptual guides for the study and the signed to the staff of the Research Division of content of the survey instrument. We then the National Headquarters of Selective Ser- pretested the interview schedule on Japanese vice; there, with other social scientists, I did civilians, using Japanese-American interview- research on civilian and military manpower.* ers. These interviewers had participated in During this period, through contacts with many of our meetings and were well Samuel A. Stouffer and members of his staff, acquainted with the purposes of the research. I became well acquainted with the interdisci- The survey directors and the interviewers then plinary research program of the Information participated in the final revision of the and Education Division of the War Depart- interview schedule. Meanwhile, our sampling ment, most of which involved studies of experts had designed and drawn a probability soldiers' adjustment to military life during sample of the Japanese adult civilian popula- World War 11. Much of this research was tion, consisting of approximately 3000 per- published in the famous four-volume work sons. We took our teams of interviewers into The American Soldier (1949) under Stouffer's the field and completed the interviewing in leadership. I also became acquainted with three months. Rensis Likert, and several of his colleagues, In another month, after returning to Wash- who directed the Program Surveys Division ington, we had developed our coding scheme of the Department of Agriculture. That for the interviews, coded the materials, and division had conducted social psychological completed the statistical processing of the studies of the civilian population for several data. By that time several of our members had departments of the government during the war been released from service and had returned years. to their academic posts. Those of us who After the surrender of Germany, Likert remained, with assistance from some of our asked me to join a group that was making departed colleagues, wrote the final report. preliminary plans for a study of the influence All of this was accomplished within less than of strategic bombing on Japanese civilian a year after our arrival in Japan. The report morale. (Likert had directed a similar study in was published by the Government Printing Germany; see U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Office in 1947 (U.S. Strategic Bombing 1946.) This group included some members of Survey 1947). the team that had conducted the German Throughout this endeavor I was very much survey and several other social scientists. We impressed with the fruitfulness of interdisci- drew up preliminary plans for the Japanese plinary collaboration among bright and will- survey, including a clearly formulated concep- ing social scientists. In general the most tualization of the aims of the survey, a list of innovative and insightful ideas were gener- the factors that were to be regarded as the ated as a result of group discussions, in which major components of morale, and a series of little attention was paid to the disciplinary questions designed to elicit these components. origin of the idea. I was also greatly Within days after the surrender, the inter- impressed with the ability of an interdiscipli- disciplinary team of psychologists, sociolo- nary team to mount a study of this complexity gists, anthropologists, political scientists, a and to complete it so expeditiously.4 My some attention to collective behavior. Fortunately, as an The group included David Aberle, Conrad Arens- undergraduate I had had courses in sociology and berg, Jules Henry, and Fredrick Hulse (anthropologists); philosophy at Michigan State, in which I had read much Donald Adams, Edgerton Ballachey, and Horace English of Dewey and Cooley and some of Mead.