Sociétés contemporaines

Some reflections on various social psychologies, their histories and

historiographies / Réflexions sur diverses psychologies sociales,
leurs histoires et historiographies
Ian Lubek

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Lubek Ian. Some reflections on various social psychologies, their histories and historiographies / Réflexions sur diverses
psychologies sociales, leurs histoires et historiographies. In: Sociétés contemporaines N°13, Mars 1993. La psychologie
sociale et ses histoires. pp. 33-56;

doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/socco.1993.1098

https://www.persee.fr/doc/socco_1150-1944_1993_num_13_1_1098

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Résumé
[Réflexions sur diverses psychologies sociales, leurs histoires et historiographies] : Une mise en
perspective synthétique des exposés présentés lors de la première conférence internationale sur
l'histoire de la psychologie sociale souligne la nature problématique de l'objet de la psychologie
sociale. La psychologie sociale, à l'origine, s'exprime sous des formes diverses : l'expérimentalisme
social/utopique, les «questions sociales», la psychologie des foules, «la morale», etc. ; puis elle se
développe dans une multiplicité de branches (sociologique, psychologique, interactionniste, etc.). Mais
dans certains cas, elle semble se réduire à une simple sous-discipline, un domaine de recherche ou
une perspective. En outre, la psychologie sociale prend des expressions variées selon les contextes
culturels ou encore change quand elle émigré d'un contexte à un autre. Les difficultés de légitimer
l'historiographie disciplinaire sont analysées et ensuite sont examinées les
diversesformulationshistoriographiques, des plus étroites aux plus diversifiées, chacune ayant des
fonctions très spécifiques. L'examen critique de l'histoire classique de «manuel» de G. Allport (1954;
1968a ; 1985) est suivi par un exposé des formes les plus récentes d'histoire de la psychologie sociale
; celles-ci sont devenues plus critiques dans leur historiographie et tendent à générer de nouvelles
pratiques et de nouvelles questions.

Abstract
IAN LUBEK SOME REFLECTIONS ON VARIOUS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIES, THEIR HISTORIES
AND HISTORIOGRAPHIES Asynthesisof various historical accounts of the development of social
psychology shows the problematic nature of the object of study : social psychology as a subdiscipline,
research area or perspective. These accounts all trace multiple branches of social psychology
(sociological, psychological, interactionist, etc.) and a wide range of proto-social psychological
precursors (social/utopian experimentalism, "questions sociales", crowd psychology, "la morale", etc.).
The varieties of social psychology also show divergent expression in different cultures and when
transported across contexts. Difficulties in legitimating disciplinary historiography are discussed, before
examining a variety of historiographical formulations, from narrow to multi-faceted, which may each, in
turn, serve differing functions. A critical examination of G. Allport's (1954 ; 1968a ; 1985) classic
"textbook" history precedes an overview of recent historical accounts of social psychology, which have
become generally more critical in their historiography and more generative concerning future enquiry
and practice.
♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦ IAN LUBEK ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦

SOME REFLECTIONS ON VARIOUS SOCIAL

PSYCHOLOGIES, THEIR HISTORIES
AND HISTORIOGRAPHIES1

résumé [Réflexions sur diverses psychologies sociales, leurs histoires et

historiographies] : Une mise en perspective synthétique des exposés présentés lors de la
première conférence internationale sur l'histoire de la psychologie sociale souligne la nature
problématique de l'objet de la psychologie sociale. La psychologie sociale, à l'origine,
s'exprime sous des formes diverses : l'expérimentalisme sociallutopique, les «questions
sociales», la psychologie des foules, «la morale», etc. ; puis elle se développe dans une
multiplicité de branches (sociologique, psychologique, interactionniste, etc.). Mais dans
certains cas, elle semble se réduire à une simple sous-discipline, un domaine de recherche ou
une perspective. En outre, la psychologie sociale prend des expressions variées selon les
contextes culturels ou encore change quand elle émigré d'un contexte à un autre. Les difficultés
de légitimer l'historiographie disciplinaire sont analysées et ensuite sont examinées les
diversesformulationshistoriographiques, desplus étroites aux plus diversifiées, chacune ayant
des fonctions très spécifiques. L'examen critique de l'histoire classique de «manuel» de G.
Allport (1954; 1968a ; 1985) est suivi par un exposé des formes les plus récentes d'histoire de
la psychologie sociale ; celles-ci sont devenues plus critiques dans leur historiographie et
tendent à générer de nouvelles pratiques et de nouvelles questions.

HISTOR(Y/IES] OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOG(Y/IES)

Writing any history about social psychological developments (conceptual,

research, institutional) is doubly complicated by questions of whether the two
notions of "history" and of "social psychology" should each be treated in the
singular or in the plural — as "histor(y/ies) of social psycholog(y/ies)" (cf. Lubek,

1 . This work was facilitated by grants from SSHRC/University of Guelph/Research Advisory Board and
York University's CUEW fund and was completed while visiting the GEDISST (Groupe d'Etudes sur la
Division Sociale et Sexuelle du Travail), and the IRESCO (Institut de Recherche sur les Sociétés
Contemporaines), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France. The author thanks Erika
Apf elbaum, Jean-Paul Terrenoire, Franz Samelson and Fran Cherry for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Sociétés Contemporaines (1993) n° 13 (p. 33-68)

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1992). Rather than writing the history of this discipline (or sub-discipline, or field
of research) , the chronicler in fact finds multiple types of histories and historiography
available. As well, for both historic and institutional reasons, there are several
varieties of social psychology which have evolved (psychological, sociological,
interactive) and Katz (1978) also reminds us of the importance of political and
economic branches of social psychology2. These varying social psychologies have
each expressed themselves uniquely in different cultural, ideological, economic,
socio-political, historical and religious contexts. Moscovici's (1972) critique of the
social psychology of "the nice person", based narrowly on the American culture,
still bears re-examination today3 ; Apfelbaum (1993 a) stresses the ideological,
socio-political, and economic influences upon the social psychological thought of
France or North America4 ; and Dehue (in press) andvanStrien (1991) describe the
"pillarization" of Dutch psychological theory, method and practice along confessional
lines5. Some of these expressed differences can be attributable to a voluntary (or
not-so-voluntary), appropriate (or not so appropriate), geo-cultural migrations of
ideas, sometimes to the point of developing an intellectual imperialism or a
"colonial pact", as Moscovici (1993) describes relations between American and
European social psychology6.
Discussions about which social psychology was to be chronicled and which
historical method was appropriate for its revelation were common features of the
International Conference on the History of Social Psychology (Blanchet, Dorna,

2. Cf. Karpf, 1932 ; G. Allport, 1968a ; Jackson, 1988 ; Gilmour , Duck, 1980 ; Collier, Minton, Reynolds,
1991; Good, Still, 1992 ; Lubek, 1990.
3. Would American studies such as M. Harris ' s ( 1 990) on love and obesity, or Hatfield and Sprecher' s ( 1 986)
on "looking good" have any particular relevance for a country, such as France, with its different cultural-
historical development of the expression of love and the passions, the primacy of food as an organizing theme
of social life, and different conceptions of romance, courtship and social relations between men and women
(cf. Apfelbaum, 1993b) ? Perhaps there would be even less relevance for non- Western nations.
4. Cf. the related ideological analyses of (social) psychological research by Sampson (1978) ;Billig(1982) ;
Jansz (1991) ; Samelson (1975) ; Bramel, Friend (1982) ; E. Sullivan (1984).
5. The division of Dutch society along denominational lines (Catholic, Protestant, and "neutral") cut across
political and trade-union organizations, mass media, as well as school systems and universities, and
psychological theory and practice (van Strien, 1991). Dehue describes the process of political accommodation
whereby individuals generally passively followed the leaders of their particular groups and voted along
denominational lines. This produced autonomy within each group, with cooperation between the leaders of
the groups needed to reach a consensus. Dutch confessional commitments also played a role in consensuses
about psychological methodology (Dehue, in press, chapter 2).
6. See Hotta's (1993), discussion of the rebuilding of post-war Japanese social psychology ; Haas's (1993)
description of Dutch psychology's borrowings from Great Britain and Germany ; Collier, Lavoie, Lavoie' s
( 1 993) example of the earlier, turn of the century borrowing of French social theory by North American social
psychologists ; and van Elteren's (1993) contrasting of Kurt Lewin's shifting ideas about work in the
Weimar German and liberal-democratic American environments. Similarly, Apfelbaum (1986 ; 1993a ;
Apfelbaum, Lubek, 1 976) has noted that studying a social psychological problem such as conflict-reduction
(with its implications for world peace) in McCarthy-era America does not produce the same sort of research
agenda as studying such questions during a period of social upheaval and social movements. See also the
specificities of social psychological analyses within Northern Ireland (Gough, Robinson, Kremer, Mitchell,
1992) and South Africa (Louw, Foster, 1992).

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Jakobi, Lubek, Matalon & Minton, 1992)7. These conference papers focused on
social psychology's development from a variety of perspectives : intra-disciplinary,
trans-paradigmatic, cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary, trans-historical, and
epistemological. They serve as a useful backdrop for an examination of the
singularity/plurality issue concerning both social psychologies) and his-
tor(y/ies).

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOG(Y/IES) AS OBJECT OF HISTORICAL INQUIRY

During the 1930s, prominent psychologists including learning theorist Clark

Hull seriously sought to emulate classical physics as a model scientific discipline
(Lubek, 1986, pp. 43-46). But, in fact, psychology's genesis had been more recent,
with intellectual and institutional roots in a variety of areas (Danziger, 1979 a),
especially philosophy and physiology (and, in France, medicine) ; its evolving
identity has been categorized as a "hybrid" discipline (cf. the debate among Ben
David, Collins, 1966 ; 1967 ; and D. Ross, 1967) or as a "problematic science"
(Woodward, Ash, 1982). Danziger (1990 a) demystifies the physics envy of
psychologists who "have been taught to characterize their own scientific activity in
terms of a framework that is derived from nineteenth-century physical science"
(p. 1 ) . Since most accounts of the history of social psychology indicate, as part of the
story, some evolutive "branching" (or "marginalization") from psychology, we
might also expect to find social psychology's object to be "problematic", as well
(Apfelbaum,1992, 1993a)8. Lubek (1990) has ascribed social psychology's multi-
identity crisis to the lack of both conceptual and institutional/disciplinary
foundations9.
Pluridisciplinary accounts of social psychology' s roots (Karpf, 1932 ;G. Allport,
1954 ; 1968a ; 1985 ; Jackson, 1988 ; Pepitone, 1981 ; Collier, Minton, Reynolds,
1991) generally discuss "psychological" versus "sociological" social psychologies
(cf. also the critical analyses by Farr, 1978, and Good, Still, 1992). However, at the
end of the 19th century, a description of social psychology's evolution as a research
area, sub-discipline or discipline was premature, and there were only a few signs of

7. Held in Paris April 18-20, 1991.it attracted over 120 participants from 16 countries with a final programme
containing 32 papers, 7 poster presentations, and a 5-speaker round-table. Most of these papers have been
published in special issues devoted to social psychology and its history in Canadian Psychology!
Psychologie canadienne (n° 33, (3), July/juillet, 1992) and Sociétés Contemporaines ( n° 13, 1993), hereafter cited
as Lubek, Minton, Apfelbaum (1992), and Lubek, Apfelbaum, Paicheler (1993), respectively.
8. "Because of the different ways of representing social psychology, or the varying ways of sequencing it
by other previously demarcated disciplines such as psychology or sociology, the very nature of the subject
matter itself is called into question and becomes 'problematic'". (Apfelbaum, 1992, p.535).
9. This has in part been created by : "the perilous epistemological position of its subject matter — located
in the interactive space between the individual and the social — and by the equally difficult disciplinary
tight-rope-walking between psychology and sociology, as these two 'parent' disciplines strove for legitimacy
and career opportunities as viable social sciences" (Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1988, pp. 2-3).

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the emergence of correlative institutionalized indicators, such as specialized

journals or journal rubrics, academic positions, university courses, professional
(e.g., PhD) training, textbooks, research funds, professional societies, and/or
recognized theoretical andmethodological paradigm exemplars (Lubek, Apfelbaum,
1988). During this period of "proto-social psychological" development involving,
in France, for example, a problem-centred focus on "les questions sociales"
(Apfelbaum, 1 986) , there was much more at stake for the amorphous area of concern
for the "social", its interface with the individual and with the collective, and the
interactions among individuals. The tum-of-the-century debates in France between
Tarde and Durkheim were not just disciplinary demarcation disputes about
"parent"
psychologizing versus sociologizing perspectives, as the two evolving
disciplines began to become institutionalized. There were also at stake broader
philosophical issues of whether social analysis would adopt ahistorical methodology
and outlook or that of a positivistic (and eventually experimental) science (Lubek,
1981)10.
These concerns with the singular versus multiple disciplinary genesis of social
psycholog(y/ies) must also take into consideration the problem of cultural-
boundedness of an intellectual project concerned with both abstract, theoretical
explanatory schemes and practical, change-oriented knowledge about social life. At
the turn of the century, the problematic concerns and institutionalization patterns of
French thinkers such as Durkheim, Tarde, or Binet, or of the German folk
psychologists, had little overlap with the concerns of the evolving psychological,
sociological, and social psychological approaches in America in general (cf.
G. Paicheler, 1992 ; Vermès, Sellier, Ohayon, 1993 ; Collier, Minton, Reynolds,
1991) and at the University of Chicago, in particular11. When portions of French

1 0. Tarde, late in life, did make some concessions toward a more scientific approach involving empirical
studies (which he was planning in conjunction with Binet at the time of his death), laboratory research and
statistics (Lubek, 1981, p.374). In Germany, Wundt's "Volkerpsychologie" version of social psychology,
outlined as early as 1863, clearly separated out the historical approach for such cultural and linguistic studies
from the laboratory approach to be used with physiologically oriented experimental psychology (Kroger,
Wood, 1992, pp. 584-585 ; cf. Danziger, 1979 a, b ; Kroger, Scheibe, 1990).
11. In the period 1890-1920, many of the Chicago sociologists and psychologists supported social
psychological ideas, wrote about them, and encouraged their students to do so. Sociologists such as A. Small,
W. I. Thomas, E. Burgess, and R. E. Park organized "field studies" which used the social problems of a
chaotically expanding new city as a laboratory for looking at the social consequences of immigration,
urbanization, assimilation and language learning, working conditions (in the meat-packing industry, sweat
shops),family dynamics, prejudice, alcoholism, poverty, prostitution, and sexuality. At the same time, an
interactionist social psychology also evolued as. G. H. Mead provided the beginnings of a language- and
symbolic-oriented social psychology.
In psychology, where J. B. Watson received his first inklings about transforming the functional psychology
of J. R. Angell and H. Carr into a "behaviourism" which would finally find expression in F. Allport's (1924)
social psychology textbook, John Dewey was also concerned about a more applied social psychology
(Minton, 1993) and, before leaving for Columbia Teacher's College, also set up an experimental school
which would have later impact on American thinking about socialization processes and educational
curriculum. The formal teaching of social psychology at Chicago began early, as E. A. Ross gave summer
courses in 1 896, when Charles Ellwood was working on a thesis, eventually published as Some prolegomena
to social psychology (Ellwood, 1901). During the next 25 years, Ellwood would write a series of social
psychology textbooks himself for use by the growing number of social psychology courses and students.

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social thought were transported to America — Comte's "morale" (McGuire, 1993)

or Tarde's "imitation" (Collier, Lavoie, Lavoie, 1993) — they were reshaped and
adapted to the local brand of liberal individualism. Van Elteren (1993) provides
convincing arguments to show how Kurt Lewin's ideas about work underwent
reconfiguration after he was forced to leave Germany for America in 1933. The
differential pattern of development of social psycholog(y/ies) in particular cultural
contexts — Hotta (1993) for Japan ; Costall (1992) for Great Britain ; Louw, Foster
(1992) for South Africa ; Haas (1993) for the Netherlands ; Van Elteren (1992 ;
1993) and Hick (1992) for Germany ; Donzelli (1991-2 ; 1993) for Italy ; Lafuente,
Ferrandiz (1992) for Spain ; Gough, Robinson, Kremer, Mitchell (1992) for
Northern Ireland ; and Pages, Vacher (1993), Maisonneuve (1992), Jakobi (1992),
Carroy (1993) and Vermès, Sellier, Ohayon (1993) for France — clearly favours a
pluralist approach.
Finally, social psychology entered a period of paradigmatic "crisis" (Elms,
1975 ; Rosnow, 1981 ; Rijsman, Stroebe, 1989), signs of which had first begun
surfacing at the end of the "protesting 1960s" in both North American and European
writings (e.g.,Ring, 1967 ; Gergen, 1973 ; Israel, Tajfel,1972 ; Strickland, Aboud,
Gergen, 1976 ; Armistead, 1973 ; Buss, 1979). Ring (1967) focused on a shifting
value orientation among laboratory experimental social psychologists towards a
"fun and games" approach, while Moscovici (1972) called for the réintégration of
language and politics into social psychology, and at the same time criticized the
limiting American vision of the "psychology of the nice person", then intent on
studying such phenomena as "liking and interpersonal attraction". A variety of new
social psychological formulations also began appearing as alternatives : ethogenic
(Harré, Secord, 1972 ; Kroger, 1982) ; feminist (Apfelbaum, 1979 ; Wilkinson,
1986 ; Meyer, 1986 ; Walkerdine, 1986 ; Unger, 1985) ; historical (Gergen, Gergen,
1984) ; social constructivist (Gergen, 1985 ; Harré, 1986 ; Greenwood, 1989 ; but
see also Stam, 1990 ;Cerullo, 1992 ;andIbanez-Gracia, 1989) ; and, communicative
— texts/ narratives/ discourse/ rhetoric/metaphors (Potter, Wetherell, 1987 ; Billig,
1987 ; Sarbin, 1986 ; Shotter, Gergen, 1989 ; Gergen, 1990 ; Minton, 1992). Each
of these alternatives in some way questioned the previous scientistic, physicalist
model which psychology and social psychology had adopted (Danziger, 1990a).
Such an approach had been institutionally reinforced by such mainstream journals
as the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology/ Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology (JPSP), Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology (JESP), The
European Journal of Social Psychology (EJSP), and Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin (PSPB), as well as by the various textbooks and handbooks
which defined the sub-discipline' s methodology12. This "ideal" vision of scientific
social psychology was transmitted, for example, during the training of social
psychologists (Lubek, Thorns, Bauer, 1992) , and also in the reviewing and selection
process of work for publication by journal editors (or community paradigmatic

12. See Stam & Lubek's (1992) analysis of the pressures towards methodological conformity produced
through such methodological prescriptions as Aronson & Carlsmith's (1968) handbook chapter, and
Winston's (1992) analysis of textbook presentations.

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gatekeepers, cf. Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1987) 13. Rijsman and Stroebe (1989, pp. 341-
342) list three reactions to the crisis : some researchers continued to maintain a
natural science "old paradigm" based on "strong psychologism" ; others have
switched to one or other form of a constructionist "new paradigm", taking up anti-
positivist positions ; while a third group, "psychological constructivism" maintains
a constructionist theoretical outlook but prefers the old psychologistic experimental
methodology. Further historical attention must also be focused upon these new post-
crisis branches of social psychological thought and practice.
The historical studies from the conference thus join a widening literature on the
development of social psychological thought and practice in its varying classical
disciplinary categories (sociological, psychological, interactionist), its diverse
cultural manifestations, and, more recently, its alternative-paradigm modalities.
Given these multiple roots, institutional anchorings, differential cultural flowerings,
and recent alternative branchings, I would argue that it would be prudent to use the
plural "social psychologies", in describing historical development. While "many of
the [conference] papers also contribute to the démystification of the notion of a
uniform, monolithic or universalist social psychology" (Lubek, 1992, p. 656), there
will be some readers, and social psychological practitioners, who may still wish to
construe "social psychology" as a unified "object" or disciplinary category ; the
term "social psycholog(y/ies) " may diplomatically leave room for such interpretive
preferences.

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT AND THE WRITING OF HISTOR(Y/IES) OF SOCIAL

PSYCHOLOG(Y/IES)
The question of "singular versus plural" also can be raised concerning the
differing ways of, and purposes for, writing about social psychological development,
as highlighted by the use of the term "histor(y/ies)" (Lubek, 1992). This signals,
historiographically, that "there is no simple blueprint for the writing of a, let alone
the, history of social psychology" (p. 657). Moscovici(1993) and Apfelbaum
(1993 a) each indicate that there is little disciplinary support for such historical
work. The conference papers do provide insight into the types of epistemological
and historiographie analyses that social psychologists are now able to offer their
sub-discipline, even if the interest is not always mutual. Such historical work about
social psychology is of course a far cry from the favoured scientific "empirical
laboratory studies" which during the past five decades supplied the cumulative

13. This mainstream view shared a positivistic conception of an experimental laboratory science. As it
evolved (Morawski, 1988), it borrowed ideas from older, legitimatized scientific fields : operationalism
from physics (Rogers, 1989 ;Koch, 1992 ; Green, 1992) ; the submergence of complex group processes into
statistical aggregate data representations (Danziger, 1990a) ; the "inference revolution" involving null-
hypothesis testing (Gigerenzer, Murray, 1987) and the importation of analysis of variance statistical
techniques for the study of active interpersonal and group dynamics, borrowed from agricultural research
about passive fields and their crop yields (cf. Rucci, Tweney, 1980 ; Gigerenzer, 1993) ; not to mention the
use of a physicalist model of persons treated as objects or particles involved in "billiard-ball" relationships
of linear causality (cf. Bickard, 1992, for a discussion of other erroneous borrowings from philosophy of
science).

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content for social psychology's knowledge base. In some cases, such historical
research may, in fact, reflect one of the critical reactions to the subdisciplinary crisis,
as various reflexive and epistemological analyses of social psychological research
activity began providing a multi-faceted critique of its methods, ethics, overarching
metatheories, root metaphors, underlying "models of humanity" and ideological
biases. These multi-level analyses challenged the assumptions and carefully forged
consensuses of social psychology at its scientific, meta-scientific and extra-
scientific levels (Lubek, 1993a)1 .
As part of the broader reflexive exercise of looking critically at contemporary
social psychology, the historical question of "how it got that way" was raised for a
number of writers. Articles combining epistemological, empirical and historical
arguments, and data, began emerging from social psychologists and others who had
initially been trained as scientific experimentalists (cf. Strickland, Aboud, Gergen,
1976 ; Buss, 1979). As historians, psychologists and social psychologists began to
meet one another at the (sub-) disciplinary interface with history of science, there
was a mutual exchange1 5. Gradually, historians became more aware of events at the
social and interpersonal level, and their impact (Kuhn, 1977 ; cf. Kren and
Rappoporťs, 1976, inclusion of a section on "group processes and historical
trends"). Social psychologists became increasingly sensitized to the temporal
dimension and the dialectic of change and constancy, which then entered into their
theorizing (Gergen, 1973 ; Rappoport, 1986 ; Gergen, Gergen, 1984). But most of
the historians of social psychology were /л/ra-disciplinary chroniclers, who soon
found that "doing history" rigorously was not necessarily any easier than "doing
social psychology" scientifically16.

1 4. Scientific-level activities include the normal-science, parametric addition of new variables for empirical
testing and a series of related decisions which may involve : choice among competing theories and
hypotheses ; strategies concerned with research methods and design ; research refinements according to
professional codes of ethics to protect research subjects, clients, etc. Meta-scientific commitments involve
broader epistemological and "philosophy of science" questions of metatheory, metamethodology, inter-
disciplinarity, underlying "world hypotheses" or "root metaphors" of science, etc. Some of these choices
may involve re-evaluation of philosophical foundation — stones or shifting criteria and rules of scientific
method. Extra-scientific decisions are concerned with both the surrounding "physical" institutional
structures and arrangements as well as the surrounding ideological and value commitments evolving in particular
socio-historical, political and economic contexts. Challenges from the changing real world, beyond the walls
of the scientific laboratory, may confront, and constrain, the researcher. Institutionally, the support of science
by governments, universities, specialized journals, and other organizations can shift dramatically and
influence scientific and meta-scientific choices. But researchers are also citizens, and their belief systems
about the world they live in are affected by the dramatically changing historico-socio-politkal-economic
context surrounding them.
1 5. A most thorough discussion of the rise of "history of psychology" as a subdiscipline is found in Ash
(1983), especially in terms of the ceremonial, promotional textbook functions of history confronting a
demystifying critical scholarship stressing a broader, contextual social history. Sokal (1984) points out that
in the 1 960s and 1 970s, historians of science also went through a period of "physics envy" and "looked down
on the history of psychology as being peripheral to their interests", some even suggesting it belonged with
the "pseudo-sciences" (p.339).
16. As Hilgard, Leary and McGuire (1991) pointed out :
"Historians do not simply read texts and write history. Decisions about topical or thematic focus, the nature
of relevant data, the means of gathering this information, the appropriate mode of analysis and interpretation,
and the construction of narrative or other genres of presentation are all at issue, each and every time an
historical project is undertaken. Formany contemporary historians of psychology, it is exciting to face these
intellectual and methodological challenges" (p. 94).

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Moreover, although they had made the move from hypothetico-deductive

scientific thinking to a more critical, in some cases hermeneutic, conceptual
framework, there was little sign of any institutional support for historical research
on (social) psychology from within the experimentally-oriented academic sub-
discipline1 . The general lack of permeability may be due to disciplinary,
methodological and metatheoretical commitments, as Morawski has noted18.
Research on "history of (social) psychology", as well as on "theoretical psychology"
and "psychology of women", transcended or cross-cut subdisciplinary and
disciplinary boundary demarcations, such that their proponents often fell between
the academic cracks during career evaluation procedures, funding applications,
etc.19. Since historians of (social) psychology do not "do (social) psychology" in
the same way
"scientific" paradigmatic
as their departmental
perspectivecolleagues
and meta-scientif
busy themselves
ic approach,
byit applying
may therefore
their
be understandable that problems or misunderstandings may arise when scientific
psychologists are then called upon to review the work of historians of psychology.
Morawski (1984) has been able to incisively locate some of the specific points of
opposition and commonality between social psychological and historical perspectives
which might lead to more integrative work in the future. But the conceptual gap
between psychologists and historians of psychology is also reflected in terms of the
support offered by professional associations such as the American Psychological
Association20. Generally, the interdisciplinary Journal for the History of the
Behavioral Sciences has been the major outlet since 1965*1 . It was joined in 1988
by History of the Human Sciences. Historical articles (and a recent 1992 issue

1 7. Samelson (1993, personal communication) reported that his (pioneering) 1974 study of "origin myths"
was first rejected from the mainstream Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and from the Journal
ofExperimental Social Psychology for lack of experimental data and/or interest to social psychologists. It
eventually appeared, almost by chance, in a less well known journal, with its title misprinted.
18. Morawski (1984) describes the disciplinary demarcations separating social historians from social
psychologists with an historical perspective, due in part to the "emerging isomorphism between a discipline
and its methodological commitments. Once allied with psychology proper, social psychology adopted the
rigorous methods associated with positivism while historians remained sceptical of that doctrine. Instead,
historians permitted a certain methodological and epistemological pluralism, an attitude that has prompted
continued reflection and that consequently has fostered something of a disciplinary autonomy and, more
recently, what might even be called a 'liberation' discourse on theory and practice" (p. 38). See Veroff 's
(1984) views about bridging between "social history" and "social psychology".
1 9. Elsewhere, I have indicated some of the mechanisms by which anomalous or marginalized findings and
formulations may meet resistance in the peer evaluation process, especially in times of shifting paradigms
(Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1987). While a few historians of psychology are actually employed in history
departments and are evaluated there by their peers, most are "disciplinary internalists", i.e. psychologists
trained, and employed, in psychology departments, who write the history of their discipline from the
perspective of a working insider. Bridging historiographie methodology with psychological subject matter
requires, for historian and psychologist alike, additional cross-disciplinary extension.
20. The American Psychological Association sponsors a number of widely-read journals — e.g., two
especially for its experimental social psychologists (JPSP ; PSPB),andoneforitsappliedsocial psychologists
(JournalofSocial Issues or JSI), in addition to a broad range of journals for its experimental, developmental,
and clinical psychologists, etc. However, the 622 members (in 1985) of АРА' s Division 26 on History
(almost 1% of APA's membership) have no "official disciplinary" outlet for their work.
2 1 . Ash (1983, p. 169) found that of 121 articles on history of psychology in that journal between 1977 and
1981 (representing 73,4% of the journal's articles), 61,2% were written by psychologists, 19,8% by
historians or historians of science, and the remaining 19 % came from other disciplines.

40
 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS

commemorating thecentenary of the АРА) have appeared in American Psychologist,

and book reviews appear in Contemporary Psychology. Two special issues, in 1986,
of the Journal ofSocial Issues commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Society
for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI)22. Thus for the most part, it has
been social psychologists who have attempted to write their disciplinary history,
conceptually retooling themselves and borrowing various historiographie methods,
concepts and perspectives, but without much institutional support from their own
sub-discipline.

COMPLEXITIES OF "HISTOR(Y/IES)" : A "MULTI-FACTORIAL" HISTORIOGRAPHY

The two recent collections of papers (Lubek, Minton, Apf elbaum, 1992 ;Lubek,
Apf elbaum, Paicheler, 1 99 3) do in fact demonstrate a wide range of responses to the
historiographical challenges faced by social psychologists, in particular, when they
chronicle their sub-discipline. We may attempt to delineate some of the varieties
and functions of history which inform some of the papers in these collections, as
well as other scholarship in the field. I have elsewhere described (Lubek, 1993b)
John Sullivan's (1973) attempt to outline a fuller historiography of psychology,
which in fact bears an uncanny resemblance to the multi-factor analysis of variance
designs which became so ingrained in modem psychological thinking about
research. Sullivan's "AHPS" taxonomy of elements discernable in historical work
listed four major categories, each closely tied to a disciplinary perspective :
Analysis of theory (philosophy of science) ; Historical narrative (historiography) ;
Person description (psychology) ; and Social groups (sociology) . He designates the
pure examples of these four uni -dimensional analyses as A4, HH, PP, and SS, which
might just, for example, recount a sequence of events (HH) or examine the elements
of a theoretical approach (A4). Six combinations of two-factor histories (AH, AP,
HP, AS, HS, PS) would provide richer blendings. Sullivan suggests, for example
that an AH history might be a comparative "structural history", looking at theoretical
formulations of Plato versus Freud. But these two-element studies, he suggests, lack

22. Besides the two special issues of Canadian Psychology! Psychologie canadienne (Lubek, Minton,
Apfelbaum, 1992) and Sociétés contemporaines (Lubek, Apfelbaum, Paicheler, 1993), it is often difficult
to find publishing outlets. Historians of (social) psychology may publish, but against fierce disciplinary-
wide competition, in general АРА journals such as the flagship journal American Psychologist, or (invited
book reviews) in Contemporary Psychology ; they must also face strong cross -disciplinary competition for
access to the prestigious Journalfor the History of the Behavioral Sciences (JHBS), Isis, and general and
specialized journals for historians. Hilgard, Leary & McGuire (1991, p. 80) listed five journal outlets :
Journalfor the History of the Behavioral Sciences, History of the Human Sciences, Storia e Critica della
Psicologia, Psychologie und Geschichte, and Revista de Historia de la Pskologia. In addition, we may cite
Theory and Psychology, andtheJournalforthe Theory ofSocialBehaviourwlúdhtavealso accepted articles
on the history of (social) psychology ; the British Journal ofSocial Psychology had a special issue in 1983 ;
Revue Française de Sociologie has had several special issues on the history of Durkheimian sociology, and
discussions of social psychology were included (1979 ; 1981 ; 1985). In addition, possible informal
dissemination of ideas may come in publication of various newsletters including those of the historical
sections of the Canadian, British, German and American Psychological Associations, the International and
European Cheiron Societies (including a series of 5 European Cheiron "Proceedings" volumes), the Forum
for the History of the Human Sciences, and the Société Française pour Г Histoire des Sciences de l'Homme.

41
IAN LUBEK ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

the breadth of what a historian might strive to produce ; they tend to be "nonhistorical
studies or historical studies done by non-historians with a special interest in a
particular aspect of science" (p.34)M. After describing four three-element
histories : AHP, AHS, APS, and HPS, he suggests that only the fullest, most
contextualized history — the four-component AHPS — merits being called history
proper. However, he suggests that this ideal is rarely reached, because in historical
writing, the(p."balance
historian" 36). of components tends to reflect the primary training of the

Social psychologists have already had some inter-disciplinary straddling during

their training, when they are exposed to both sociological (S) and psychological (P)
perspectives. To move towards writing about the history of their discipline, they
must master a perspective of historiographie narrative (H) as well as the analytical
style from philosophy of science (A). Most histories, according to J. Sullivan, can
be located according to the AHPS four-dimensional space. In the current issue, van
Elteren's (1993) paper on Lewin and work provides one such example of afull, four-
element history.

WRITING HISTOR(Y/IES) : ADDING THE "SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF SCIENCE" AS A

FIFTH HISTORIOGRAPHICAL WHEEL

Other examples of fuller-range historical analyses would include Danziger's

(1993 ; 1990a, chapter 1) approach to the social generation of scientific knowledge
and the social contexts of investigative practice ; Samelson's (1975, 1979) look at
IQ and testing ; and van Strien (1993)24. Elsewhere, I have suggested (e.g., Lubek,
1990 ; Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1979 ; 1987) imposing upon history of science a fifth
perspective, that of social psychology of science. This adds a fifth element to the
AHSP schema, which we might designate as "Г because it focuses on interpersonal
interactions and small group influence processes, midway between the level of, on
the one hand, the more molar sociological institutions and the organization of a
paradigmatic community, and, on the other, the more molecular, logic-of -science
and psychology-of-science level of the paradigmatic exemplar or (agreed-upon)
model for research (see Lubek, 1979 ; 1980 ; 1993b ; and, especially, Lubek,
1993c ; Figure 1). Without downplaying any of John Sullivan's (1973) AHPS
historiographies elements, I sought rather to highlight add/ft'o/w/ processes at work

23. John Sullivan goes on to suggest, for example, that :

"The measure of an historian is the fullness of his description of relevant historical contexts ; that of the
experimental psychologist is the amount of control of the experimental context. .. one would predict a natural
affinity of the experimental psychologist for two-element structural histories (AH) and theoretical analysis
of the A A type, and that the historian' s presentation of complex contexts of events would be inconsistent with
the intellectual style of the experimentalist" (1973, p. 34).
24. Van Strien (1993) also stresses the additional impact of both a discipline's applied or practice elements
and its moral tone on its historical and theoretical development. For a broader contextual view beyond
psychology's boundaries and out into neighbouring social science disciplines, see D. Ross's (1991)
illuminating new work.

42
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at the interpersonal and small group level: the various interactions and negotiations,
which can be often observed or analyzed through exchanges of correspondence,
involve persons in the scientific community in six situations of unequal power
involving publishing, funding, research supervision, career advancement,
undergraduate teaching, and being research subjects25. This fifth approach, at the
level of "social psychology of science", may add important extra explanatory details
which are not revealed in more macroscopic or microscopic analyses26. It suggests
that : "science is not deductively, deterministically impersonal, but rather is quite
humanly, socially (and occasionally even irrationally), inter-personal" (Lubek,
1993b, p.253).
. Such social relations and communications in science can be examined as they
evolve over time in both contemporary (e.g., Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1987) and older
historical periods (e.g., Lubek, 1986 ; Lubek, 1981 ; Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1989). To
some extent this approach avoids both the Popperian emphasis placed upon the logic
of science for the explanation of scientific progress, and the various sociology of
science perspectives (Mertonian, "Strongprogramme", etc.) debating about scientific
institutions and their norms. The analysis thus is essentially social psychological,
bordering on the social constructivist .

VARIETIES AND FUNCTIONS OF HISTORY(IES)

Discussions of the histor(y/ies) of social psycholog(y/ies) demonstrate a full

range both of historiographical types — the ways in which the historical accounts

25. More formally, these six asymmetric power relations, which help determine such research outcomes as
the speed of diffusion of ideas, the final content of research ideas, the acceptance or rejection of ideas, career
progress and longevity, include the :
i) author who submits a proposed scientific contribution to anediior (or editorial committee) who will decide
about publishing it (e.g., accept, reject, revise, delay, etc.) ;
iOresearch grant applicant who submits a proposal to ajunding agency decision-maker or granting panel ;
m)graduate student apprentice submits a thesis proposal to a professor/research supervisor and/or thesis
committee ;
iv) researcher y/ho seeks careerstability and submits his/her application to ^administrative decision-maker
(Institute director, academic department chairperson, etc.) about tenure, promotion, hiring, etc ;
v) potential undergraduate student apprentices streamed by university professors aided by textbooks, exam,
and grading systems (Lubek, 1993c) ;
vi) the subject generates "biased" social knowledge because of extra-scientific "negotiations" taking place
with the experimenter in social psychological research (Danziger, 1990 a).
26. Lubek and Apfelbaum (1987, 1989) found explanatory details when examining correspondence
between authors and editors concerning scientific publishing which were not evident by using traditional
sociological level indicators.
27. Danziger notes : " In talking about a field like scientific psychology we are talking about a domain of
constructions. The sentences in its textbooks, the tables and figures in its research reports, the patterned
activity in its laboratories, these are first of all products of human construction, whatever else they may be
as well" (1990
discovery" and "context
a, p. 2). of
In justification",
discussing twoDanziger
sorts ofdescribes
analyses the
of scientific
conceptualactivities
split of :stressing
"two components
"context of
scientific activity : a rational transindividual component, of primary importance in the context of
justification ; and an irrational individual component, important in the context of discovery. What is missing from
this account is any appreciation of the fundamental social nature of scientific activity" (1990 a, p. 3).

43
IAN LUBEK ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

are crafted — and historical functions, i.e., the purposes served by a history
(Butterfield, 1931/1951 ; Stocking, 1965 ; Woodward, 1980 ; Furumoto, 1989 ; B.
Harris, 1980). For historians of psychology, HilgardetaL (1991 , pp. 91-94) delineate
five differentiating criteria for evaluating historical accounts, which they warn are
neither non-overlapping, nor as dichotomous as might seem to be suggested by such
categorization : a) continuity-discontinuity, b) presentist-historicist, c) intemalist-
extemalist, d) "Great Man"-Zeitgeist ; and, e) ceremonial-critical. Let us briefly
discuss each of these descriptive categories of historiography, before seeing what
additional light they may shed on the conference papers dealing with the history of
social psychology (Lubek, Minton, Apfelbaum, 1992 ; Lubek, Apfelbaum, Paicheler,
1993).
a) Continuous histories stress the smooth, synchronous, uninterrupted progress
of events, e.g., the growth and expansion of a culture or nation through exploration,
conquest and colonization, or the progressive accumulation of scientific facts and
knowledge in a discipline. Discontinuous histories draw their understanding from
the analysis of disruptive events creating dramatic breakaways from the everyday
course of events — e.g., Foucault' s (1976) disjunctives or "historical ruptures" ;
Kren and Rappoport's (1980) concept of a "historical crisis" ; Kuhn's (1970)
"paradigm shift" or "scientific revolutions" ; and, the notions of "epistemological
ruptures or shifts" (Apfelbaum, 1986 ; Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1987)2*.
b) Présentât histories start from the concerns of the present and work
backwards.often in linear fashion, to find historical connections, ideational lineage
or institutional or moral justification ; historicist accounts attempt to view events
through the categories and vantage points of the original historical actors, as they
experienced events at a particular historic juncture2' ;
c)Internalist histories of science focus on the rational and logical, progressive,
intra-disciplinary development of ideas, paradigms, and research programmes ;
externalist analyses look at social, political, economic, institutional and other
broader environmental factors impinging on scientific practice. Dehue (1991)
suggests that the standards for deciding the internal/external demarcation points are
themselves variable or based on present concerns (see also Danziger, 1987 ;
Samelson, 1974/1986, p. 21)30 ;

28. For Foucault (1976, p. 18), questions involving "ruptures historiques" were "historico-political", as
differentiated from either simple historical, or historical-theoretical questions. Kren and Rappoport (1980)
suggest, "the Holocaust has been the major historical crisis of the twentieth century — a crisis of human
behavior and values" even if the consequences of this crisis "are masked by a language that seems unable
to express them and a public rhetoric that seems unwilling to try" (p. 15).
29. Stocking (1965, p. 215) suggested that "presentist" history might promote "anachronism, distortion,
misinterpretation, misleading analogy, neglect of context, [and] oversimplification of process".
30. For some writers, though, a related disciplinary distinction is made : internal histories are those written
by disciplinary insiders, such as the experimental psychologist E. G. Boring (1950) writing on the history
of psychology, or G. W. Allport (1954, 1968a, 1985) or L. Festinger (1980) on the history of social
psychology ; external histories may involve a historian (or sociologist or philosopher) of science chronicling
a discipline, e.g., physics, in which he/she was not socialized. The question of who should write the histories
of a discipline such as social psychology, and the functions served by such histories, are addressed, for
example, by Apfelbaum (1993 a) and Moscovici (1993).

44
 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS

d) "Great Men" (sic) histories, as influenced by Thomas Carlyle (1872), focus

on the lofty contributions of individual persons, often describing leadership figures
(and all too often ignoringwomen' s contributions, cf. Furumoto, 1987 ; Scarborough,
Furumoto, 1987 ; Bohan, 1990 ; B. Harris, 1984 ; Lewin, 1984)31 ; Zeitgeist
historians, dealing with important "impersonal" forces, originally stressed a somewhat
simplified notion of how the "spirit of the times" or socio-political-cultural
environment helped determine events32. Recently, more multi-faceted social
histories, have appeared which address both the social political and institutional
background for events (Lubek, 1986 ; B. Harris, Brock, 1991 ; Danziger, 1979a ;
Geuter, 1984/1992, 1987 ; van Strien, 1993) ; the broader linguistic and rhetorical
shaping of historical concepts and the use of metaphor (Danziger, 1990b ; Leary,
1990, Gergen, 1990 ; Minton, 1992) ; and the socially constructed nature of
historical objects (Danziger, 1990a).
e) Ceremonial histories, tend to trumpet, publicize and legitimate current
practices (sometimes even apologetically) through assigning an eminent precursor
or a presaging role ; criticalhistory (B. Harris, 1980) demystifies and unmasks the
more complex social and ideological factors at work behind the scenes, or brings to
the foreground socially accepted misconceptions (B. Harris, 1979). Ash (1983)
describes the critical role of unmasking past psychology's functioning for "the
production not of science, but of saleable ideology" (p.177). Danziger (1984) goes
even farther and suggests that the "strong" version of critical history will be
constructivist, in order to examine psychological objects with entwined social and
intellectual properties, e.g., "problematics" and "intellectual interests"33. This is
interpreted by Ash (1983) to mean that both the "social and intellectual contexts
perspective"
must be reconstructed
(p. 179)34. inAsh
their
goes
interrelation
on to suggest
in that
order
thetowork
gainofadequate
: "socially
historical
critical
historians and psychologists has presented a picture of the discipline and its relation
to society rather different from that conveyed in most textbooks. If they were

3 1 . A related variety of historical chronicling involves the "eponymy", when a name (e.g., Skinner or Freud)
comes to stand for a programme of ideas (Coon, 1988).
32. Historian
Man" style). While
of psychology
he contended
E. G.(1955)
Boring
that(1950)
the Zeitgeist
used a notion
Zeitgeist
cameapproach
from thetoGerman
history poet
(as well
Goethe
as a around
"Great
1827, Leahey (1980, pp. 15-16) suggests that the first influential statement of "Zeitgeist theory" was by
Hegel. Such debates about "the first discovery or use of ' are often called "antiquarian" historiography, after
the search forhistory.
"gourmand" precious one-of-a-kind artifacts, first edition books, etc. ; Moscovici (1993) labels this
33. " The subject matter of a critical history does not consist of inert bodies but of human activities in which
the social and the intellectual aspects are inseparable. The activities which constitute psychological objects
are as much social as they are intellectual activities. In the very act of producing a certain cognitive content
they are reproducing particular social formations and advancing the interests of definite groups" (Danziger,
1984, p. 105).
34. Samelson notes the "new sensitivity for historical materials" which "insists on respecting the integrity
of the thought of past figures, on the need to understand them on their own terms, within their historical
context, instead of mapping out the straight lines of scientific progress or pointing to anticipations of the
present" (1974/1986, p. 21). A similar argument is made by Moscovici (1993) for a discerning, critical
"gourmet/gastronomic" history of social psychology which evokes imagined debates with past masters of
thought.

45
IAN LUBEK ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

accepted, these results would fundamentally challenge both the scientific competence
and the social allegiance of psychologists" (p. 180).
Hilgard et al (1991) point out that in the critical/ceremonial debate, there often
is a convergence of continuity, presentism, intemalism, and "Great Man" approaches
found in the ceremonial histories while critical histories, which are the most recent
development, tend often to represent just the opposite constellations — discontinuity,
historicism, extemalism, and complex social contextual history35. Lubek, Innis,
Kroger, McGuire, Stam and Herrmann (1993) conducted, for pedagogical reasons,
a genealogical research project concerning mentor-student lineages in five Canadian
universities, in order to stimulate interest in the history of psychology courses. In
their critical re-evaluation of their own work, Lubek et al. suggested that the
ceremonial aspects of such linear research may hide certain discontinuities :
"Institutional genealogies also reinforce a 'great men' theory of history with its
implicit assumption of linear, efficient causality, of the handing down of tradition...
The history of psychology is replete with independent spirits who earned their fame
by opposing their institutional mentors, or by rebelling against their eminent
identities"
supervisors,(1993,
perhaps
p. in
18).
the service of establishing their own personal and professional
Stocking (1965) and Samelson ( 1974/1 986) ** also distinguish between several
other varieties and functions of history. Following their lead, we can extract or
cobble together additional categories such as :
f ) "Court histories ", reflecting the tendency of monarchs to hire historians who
would write laudatory, "official" histories (sometimes with unique access to royal
archival sources) ;
g) Whiggish history (Butterfield, 1931/1951), written from the side of the
winners of conflicts such as the Protestants and Whigs in England, praises certain
lines of past progress with a story which both legitimizes and glorifies the present ;
h) "Origin myths " : their creation "validates and legitimizes present views by
showing that a great thinker 'discovered' these (our) 'truths' a hundred years ago,
that our questions are 'perennial' and thus crucial ones. It gives an impression of
continuity and a tradition to our discipline... and it certifies our progress and
achievements" (Samelson, 1974/1986, p. 20.) ;
i) Antiquarian history involves chronicling the search for the oldest,"long-lost"
or most obscure object or historical artifact, a "first edition ", or a "first use" of ideas.

35. For example, we may compare a number of separate chronicles of the history of the psychoanalytic
movement and Freud's role in it, which differ considerably in the approaches taken and the purposes served,
from Freud's own internalist account (1921/1968), the celebratory account of his loyal supporter E. Jones
(1953 -1957), the Americanized psychoanalytic version of Shakow and Rapaport (1964), as compared with
the critical, biologizing account of F. Sulloway (1979), the critical contextual ist view of historian L. Hoffman
(1987), the political science-biographical approach of P. Roazen (1976), the critical historical view of
B. Harris and Brock (1992) ; the paradigmatic analyses of Steele (1985 a ; b) and the passionate
démystifications by former psychoanalytic archivist J. M. Masson (1984 ; 1990).
36. Samelson discusses Kuhn's suggestion that early work in the history of science was "largely a
byproduct of pedagogy : as a means to elucidate the concepts of a scientific specialty, to establish its tradition,
and to attract students" and suggests that history of science no longer sees "its task as producing chronicles
of scientific discoveries, or biographical accounts of its heroes, or the settling of priority claims" (Samelson,
1974/1986, p.21). For the pedagogic role of textbook presentations, see Ash (1983).

46
 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS

Articles written in this style often add a ceremonial component, trumpeting the new
discovery, per se, rather than critically inter-weaving it into a broader story within
a historicist context37. Moscovici (1993) refers to these histories as uninteresting
collecting by the "gourmand".
However, such antiquarian discoveries could also be made to serve other
historiographie functions. Consider the scholarly quest for the "first use" of the term
"social psychology"38. Many textbooks uncritically cite two English language
textbooks by E. A. Ross (1908) and W. McDougall (1908). However, various
bibliographic sources indicate that there were, in fact, numerous books, and at least
one (French) journal, with titles and sub-titles involving "social psychology", in
English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, before 1908 .
Suppose that we had recently stumbled upon the Psychologie Sociale des
Nouveaux Peuples [The social psychology of new peoples] by comparative linguist
Philarete Chasles (1875)40. Could we not go beyond a traditional antiquarian article
that trumpets the fact that the date for earliest use of the term "social psychology"
can now be pushed back to 1 875 ? Based upon this antiquarian discovery, could we
not instead argue the case for a more "critical", contextualized analysis of Chasles' s
work ? One type of presentist view would simply dismiss the work outright as being
"improperly titled", as having nothing to say about modern social psychological
concerns. Yet a historicist enquiry might instead be interested in asking about the
context that would produce thinking about culture and language, and the interface
of the social with the psychological. This account was of course written just after

37. The contrast may be most striking in certain collected works where the two styles are juxtaposed — cf.
for example the critical, contextual work of Ash ( 1 984) which brings to the surface many new, unknown facts
but elaborates and explains them against a complex socio-political background. This is followed by a
simpler, antiquarian-descriptive work by Benjamin and Wallers (1984). A series of antiquarian articles
might also debate priority of discovery or use, e.g., the first usage of the term "psychology" (cf. Boring,
1 966 ; Lapointe, 1972) . One may contrast the priority dispute about whether H. Piéron in France described
behaviorism bef ore J. B. Watson in the U.S. A. (Fraisse, 1970 ; Littman, 1971) with the critical studies of the
meaning and impact of Watson's behaviorism by Samelson (e.g., Samelson, 1981). In social psychology,
the "origin myth" of N. Triplett's running the "first social psychology experiment" in 1898 is demystified
by Haines and Vaughan (1979), yet still lives on in most contempory textbooks.
38. In bibliographic circles, an international agreement was reached in 1900 among editors of psychology
journals to adopt a common classification system for psychological literature reviews, and "social
psychology" became a subcategory under the rubric "Genetic, individual and social psychology" in James
Mark Baldwin's Psychological Index (the predecessor of Psychological Abstracts), in Binet's Année
Psychologique, and in the Zeitschrift Jîir Psychologie (Baldwin, 1901 ; Lubek, 1979 ; Apfelbaum, 1981 a ;
Danziger, 1979 a). That same year, "social psychology" also became a category in the Reader's guide to
periodic literature. Various "cataloguers" of social psychology identified early social psychological works
(Baldwin, 1901-5 ; Karmin, 1909 ; Howard, 1910 ; Essertier, 1927).
39. Elsewhere,
psychology" booksI ;have
one appeared
describedunder
(Lubek,
that title
1981)as Tarde
four attempts
(1898). However
by Gabriel
his publisher,
Tarde to Félix
publish
Alcan,
"social
had
stripped the name "social psychology" from a two volume work prepared in 1 887. The Revue de Psychologie
Sociale, (1907-8), was a short-lived journal founded by two of Gabriel Tarde's sons. Augustin Hamon
(1893 ; 1895) produced the first two of a planned series of "Studies of social psychology", stopped in mid-
survey with the third, and then failed (between 1900-1904) to produce a social psychology textbook
contracted with the Parisian publisher O. Doin (Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1988 ; 1989).
40. Chasles ( 1 798- 1873) dictated the last few pages of the book, including the title, and then suddenly died;
the book was published posthumously. He had previously taught at Collège de France, was well-travelled
in England and Germany, and promoted the study of comparative literature and romantic ideology. His
cosmopolitan view of literature blended notions from history of ideas and of civilizations.

47
IAN LUBEK ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

the tumultuous events of 1870-1871 ending up with the Commune uprising, at a

time when there was no "official" definition of social psychology, and when Wundt
was suggesting a social (Volker) psychology with strong emphasis on linguistics
and folk culture. Perhaps here a second presentist social psychological opinion is
needed, one that is more attuned to the recent calls by social psychologists to
reintegrate linguistic themes (Moscovici, 1972 ; Kroger, Wood, 1992 ; Antaki,
Leudar,
"antique"1992
work; such
Comwell,
as Chasles
Hobbs,
(1875)
1992).
within
Perhaps
the context
therefore
of the
a discussion
evolving of an
"protosocial psychologies" and social sciences of the period (Apfelbaum, 1986), would
provide a starting point for a more critical, contextual reappraisal of the work itself,
while exploring the "lost branches" of evolving thought and the effects of disciplinary
demarcations at the time. All of this might advance our understanding of social
psychological development far more than a simple antiquarian article about the
"first use" of the term "social psychology".
Finally, the antiquarian "collector's" promotional style of historical writing
must not in any way be confused with the accumulative task of assembling and
making available for examination and understanding an archival or oral history
knowledge base for historians (cf. Lubek, McGuire, Apfelbaum, McGuire, 1988 ;
Sokal, Rafail, 1982 ; McPherson, Popplestone, 1984) ; such work creates what
Apfelbaum ( 1993 a) calls, using Nora's terminology, a "place for memory"41 . Against
attempts to "revise history", as in the denial of genocides such as the Holocaust or
Shoah (cf. Apfelbaum, 1981 b), archival work such as Klarsfeld's (1978) assembled
documentation on all Jewish deportations from France during World War II
provides an important reference point for the entire society, as well as its historians.
The varieties and functions of history described above have been, for the most
part, borrowed by historians of psychology from anglophone historians of science,
although Continental historiographie ideas have also clearly begun to affect this
historical work42. As a result, the historiography within psychology has been
gradually moving away from the study of events and (great) persons and has begun
focusing on more challenging "objects"43.
In reviewing the current direction of historiography available to the historian of
social psycholog(y/ies), a consensus has been recently emerging concerning the
varieties and functions of post- 1960s historiography (Samelson, 1974/1986 ; 1980 ;

41. See Ash's (1980, p. 3) discussion of the German concept of "Denkmalpflege", referring to the
"designation, erection and preservation of public monuments", often to legitimate historical facts and focus
attention on those who have left the monuments behind. Following the reunification of Germany, there is
now a programme of re-evaluation of the public monuments of the former G.D.R. (East Germany), and some
are being removed.
42. 1 have not focused upon Continental thought — in particular, the impact of the French pluridisciplinary
perspective of the "Annales" school of social history as developed in the late 1920s by L. Febvre and M.
В loch, and as represented by F. Braudel. Nor have I looked at the histories of "mentalities", and the reactions
to the critical work of Foucault, Barthes, Derrida and others (cf. Leary, 1976) which, in emphasizing, for
example, studied
"objects" the cultural
by historians.
and linguistic embeddedness of events, has broadened dramatically the range of
43. The classic example is the impact of Aries's (1960/1973) study of "childhood" on anglophone writers
about children and the family (cf. deMause, 1976 ; Dizard, Gadlin, 1984 ; 1990). Other examples of
important "objects"
"temporalization" (Verhave,
for historians
van Hoorn,
of psychology
1984 ; Broughton,
and related
1986), the
disciplines
mental hospital
might orbeasylum
the self
(R. and
Harris,
its
1989), pain and suffering (Pemick, 1985), or the patient and illness (Herzlich, Pierret, 1984).

48
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS

Morawski, 1984 ; B. Harris, 1980 ; Danziger, 1979 a ; 1984 ; 1990a ; Ash, 1983 ;
Woodward, 1980 ; Hilgarde/ a/. , 1991 ; van Strien, 1993). These authors generally
agree that the writing of histor(y/ies), especially for scientific disciplines, is
becoming multifaceted and complex, more externally contextual, more historicist
and critical — willing to demystify "origin myths" and "official", "court" or
"Whiggish" histories, less antiquarian or ceremonial, more willing to look at
discontinuities, and with a stronger "generative" or emancipatory function (Gergen,
1982 ; Unger, 1986 ; Danziger, 1990b).
This is perhaps a result of the same critical spirit which, beginning in the late
1960s and on into the 1970s, pushed social psychology into a "crisis" (Elms, 1975 ;
Rosnow, 1981), propelled in part by social movements against perceived injustices,
and by movements of ideas away from mainstream positivism and behaviourism.
Historical studies no longer simply chronicle the past doxographically, but rather,
by critically reflecting upon the development of the problematic (or of a sub-
discipline such as social psychology), offer readers new strategic information upon
which more informed choices may be based about present and future conduct. We
shall shortly look for signs of this shift in historiography among the recent papers
on history of social psychology (Lubek, Minton, Apfelbaum, 1992 ; Lubek,
Apfelbaum, Paicheler, 1993). But let us first turn from these newer, emerging
cnYïCû/histories back to a classic "textbook" (Ash, 1983) history which has become
a traditional and integral part of the educational apprenticeship of the post-World
War II generation of social psychologists.

GORDON ALLPORT'S (1954; 1968a, b; 1985) HISTOR(Y/IES) OF SOCIAL

PSYCHOLOGY

Interestingly, Gordon Allport's (1954) "classic" internalist account in the

Handbook of Social Psychology, did share, with modern critical historians, the
notion that a function of history was the change which evolved from knowledge of
the past's successes (and mistakes). But this chapter, twice reprinted44, also filled
other historiographicfunctionsforapost- World War II, expanding social psychology.
It became, defacto, the "standard reference" for the discipline and its new recruits.
Its strong celebratory function stands out, in contrast to the more critical, contextualist
accounts of the activist problem-centred roots of social psychology (cf. Finison,
1986; B. Harris, 1986). Although denouncing antiquarian history, G. Allport's
account takes a highly presentist perspective45. Sections of text added in the 1968
revision bring the history increasingly into line with the dominant laboratory

44. Cherry (in press, chapter 1) details how Allport's revised and slightly updated manuscript went to the
editors by May, 1965 ; it appeared posthumously as Allport (1968 a) — he died on Oct. 9, 1967. It was again
reprinted as Allport (1985) with neither the section on Comte — criticised by Samelson (1974/1986) — nor
editorial indications of this deletion and the addition of other material elsewhere. (Samelson, personal
communication, May 14, 1993.)
45. According to G. Allport, "a study of the history of social psychology can be justified only if it shows
the relevance of historical backgrounds to present-day foregrounds. To this end the present essay lays stress
not upon curios and portraits, but upon psychological topics of current concern that receive genuinely helpful
illumination from the past" (1954, p. 3 ; 1968a, p. 1 ).

49
IAN LUBEK ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

experimental version of social psychology (cf. Aronson, Carlsmith, 1968 ; Stam,

Lubek, 1992).
As to the question of singular versus multiple social psycholog (yAes) , G. Allport
showed a clear preference by providing a psychological definition of social
psychology. This proved quite an influential formulation, and was thereafter often
cited in introductory social psychology textbooks, sometimes without reference to
him46. After anchoring his social psychology firmly in the experimental psychology
of the individual47, G. Allport praises secondary sources for supplying material on
history, then looks briefly at social psychological thought in antiquity, before
offering a section on "Comte's discovery of social psychology" (1954, pp. 7-9 ;
1968 a, pp. 6-10)48. G. Allport then discusses the units of analysis of social
psychology, before turning to "the beginnings of objective method", where the
entrance of "empiricism and positivism" began only in the 1920s. "The ideals of
objectivity and precision then rapidly assumed a dominant position" (G. Allport, 1954,
p. 48 ; 1968 a, p. 67).
Here the two chapters diverge, and the result is a redefinition, or at least re-
emphasis, of psychology's multi-disciplinary past. Removed, is the longer 1954
discussion about sociological and psychological textbook sources, and the dual-
discipline origin gets downplayed into a brief mention of bipolarity and the
wholesomeness of looking at social psychological problems from both points of
view (1968 a, p. 68) . Omitted also in 1968 is mention of sociologist L. L. Bernard' s
somewhat mistrustful account of experimentation as naive arbiter of truth, and an
admonition "that ultimately deep epistemological decisions underlie the building of
social psychology as a science" (G. Allport, 1954, p. 50) . A much more accepting,
enthusiastic view of experimentation isthenaddedin 196849.Butforallof G. Allport's
promotion of experimental social psychology as a science, he does offer a slight
caution near the end. After warning against trivialization of experiments, he
suggests the challenge is to produce social psychological work tuned to theory and
application, to go beyond the non-theoretical orientation that evolved from "the
arrival of the positivism that Comte advocated" (1968 a, p. 69) . Social psychologists

46. Social psychology was described as " an attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and
behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other[ human beingjs"
(G. Allport, 1954, p. 5 ; 1968 a, p. 3 ; [bracketed portion removed in 1968 a]).
47. Gordon Allport believed that "social psychology is above all else a branch of general psychology"
centred upon "human nature as localized in the person" (1954, p.5 ; 1968 a, p.4) ; "above all else, social
psychology depends upon the basic orientations and methods of experimental and theoretical psychology"
(1954, p. 6 ; 1968 a, p. 5).
48. There follows an analytical — for the most part, rather colourless AA and AH style — discussion of
six themes running through the sub-discipline's history and pre-history, which G. Allport calls "simple and
sovereign theories" : hedonism, egoism (power), sympathy, imitation, suggestion and gregariousness,
although the latter doesn't receive a separate discussion section. Interspersed is a correlative discussion of
irrationalism-rationalism. Further discussion focuses on collective behaviour (crowd, group mind, folk
psychology, collective representations, etc.).
49. 'Today the outstanding mark of social psychology as a discipline is its sophistication in method and
in experimental
stage' with a vengeance...
design.... Comte
Without
would
doubtsay
thethat
current
now, trend
at longinlast,
social
social
psychology
psychology
is toward
has entered
the objective,
the 'positive
not
speculative, study of social behavior. Watchwords are experimentation, automatic computation, statistical
reliability, replicability. Noteworthy scientific gains result from this 'hard-nosed' approach" (G. Allport,
1968a, pp. 67-68).

50
 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS

who are aware of history will be able to strike out in new important directions, and
not get trapped in the non-coherence of scattered, theory-less empirical research.
And he then adds a pedagogic function whereby history serves to make experimental
social psychologists better experimentalists.
G. Allport's (1954, 1968a) #a/w/Z>oo£chapters became increasingly celebratory,
ceremonial, presentist, "textbook" (Ash, 1983) accounts50. These chapters stirred
Samelson (1974/ 1986) to decry the "Whiggish history" and "origin myth" created
about Comte' s "discovery" of experimental social psychology. He also criticizes
G. Allport's relying solely on selective secondary sources about Comte, with most
ideas taken from several works of De Grange (with an additional De Grange
reference added in 1968)51.
Samelson argues that G. Allport's attempt to correlate part of Comte's positivist
programme, la morale, with the experimental mentality of the "behavioral sciences"
in the 1960s is misleading ; in fact, much of the irrational, religious aspects of
Comte's programme are selectively omitted for ideological reasons52. Samelson's
careful dissection of G. Allport's description of Comte leads him to formulate a
more critical agenda for the history of social psychology. Samelson wonders, given
that "our technological achievements are not overwhelming... if the main function
of social science has not been the production of ideology... Did, historically, the
wavering between formalistic denials and naive acceptance of reformist versions of
ideology contribute to the problems of the discipline — by trivializing its central
concerns ?" (Samelson, 1974/1986, p. 25).
It is curious to note that at about the same time that G. Allport had declined an
invitation to write on "current trends in the field" from theHandbook editors (Cherry,
in press, chap. 1) and was preparing the revisions for the 1968 handbook chapter,
he was also preparing another, parallel look at six decades of social psychology's
history, for a conference on graduate education in social psychology, held in
December, 1966. The conference paper was published with few changes, as G.
Allport (1968 b). Here, Comte is absent and the two textbooks of E. A. Ross (1908)
and W. McDougall (1908) constitute social psychology's "christening", which

50. As for the type of historiography proposed, G. Allport believed that "to write a history of social
psychology requires a special kind of light-fingeiedness. One extracts a finding here, an idea there, and tries
to show how these threads have woven themselves into the fabric of present-day social psychology" (1954,
p. 5; 1968 a, p. 4).
5 1 . Allport, I would suggest, did not simply summarize De Grange' s account as a "secondary source"
shortcut. In the G. W. Allport Collection at Harvard University's Pusey Library, the correspondence and
exchanges of reprints between De Grange and G. Allport began in the late 1920s and continued over the
years.
52. ".. .its content is too transparently ideological to fit into the origin myth of our discipline. The generations
succeeding Comte purified and transformed positivist doctrine by emphasizing its methodological aspect
and promoting its technological implications. The ideological component was driven underground.the
aspirations to spiritual leadership were toned down — and his successors obtained what Comte had not :
acceptance by the temporal... powers, admission into the academy" (Samelson, 1974/1986, p. 25).

51
IAN LUBEK ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

oddly occurred
"individual" "some
versus years before it was born" (G. Allport, 1968 b, p. 9)53. The
"group
organization" split is mentioned at the outset as being
"clearly demarcated. This bifurcation exists down to the present day" (p. 10). He
critically describes how the "frenzy of methodological sophistication... and elaborate
mendacious experimentation began to flourish. Our addiction to the pompous and
erroneous term 'methodology' betrays our preoccupation. We inflate our methods
into 'methodologies' because we are so conscious of them and so childishly proud"
(G. Allport, 1968 b, p. 15)54. G. Allport contrasts some of the careful and inventive
problem-centred social psychology which is published in books and "are not (like
many
'methodologies'
of our journal
" (G. Allport,
articles) 1968
tied,b,gagged,
p. 17) . This
and somewhat
suffocated
more
by critical
their pretentious
historical
look at social psychology no longer celebrates the subdiscipline as the brilliant
experimental continuator of Comte's positivism and experimentation, but rather,
faces "frankly our failure thus far to demonstrate our claim to be spokesmen for a
powerful theoretical and applied social science" (G. Allport, 1968 b, p. 17) . He does
however remain (positivistically ?) optimistic that social psychology will "yet
become the central science for the understanding and amelioration of mankind" (G.
Allport, 1968 b, p. 18).
He calls for amore historical perspective55, before ending on an inter-disciplinary
note that : "although social psychology has its own body of history, theory,
problems and methods it is not a self-sufficient science. It thrives best when cross-
cultivated in a rich and diversified intellectual garden" (p. 19). G. Allport's
"second"
history of social psychology is much less ceremonial than the first, and
doesn ' t apologize for the sub-discipline' s weaknesses, as does the first. It is also less
well cited and known among social psychologists. Removed from the presented
talk, with the editorial query "too censorious ?" was the phrase : "And so my final
word is this : Let no student think that by grinding out a hasty dissertation to refute
some equally hasty dissertation of the previous year, he becomes thereby a
permanently trained and qualified social psychologist — not even if his dissertation
scintillates with an awesome 'methodology'" (typescript version, p. 17)56.

53. G. Allport's (1968 b) description of the contents of his own graduate courses at Harvard prior to 1920
can be compared with the materials highlighted in the 1954 handbook chapter, especially about Le Dantec,
and his own emphasis on the psychological branch of social psychology.
54. He then criticizes the fragmentary nature of social psychological knowledge "May it be that the goad
to 'publish or perish' encourages swift, piecemeal, unread, and unreadable publications, crammed with
method but scant on meaning ?The prevalence of fragmentation seems illustrated by the present cloudburst
of books of disjointed and astigmatic Readings. The student is fed fragments, not theory" (G. Allport, 1968
b, p. 16).
55. After noting that 94 % of the references in a recent sample of social psychology journal articles were
published after 1950, G. Allport suggests that social psychology "needs also historical perspective" (p. 18)
and the ability to relate the "problem to the context in which it property belongs" (p. 18).
56. The author wishes to thank Harvard University Archives, Pusey Library for permission to cite
unpublished work from the Gordon Allport papers (HUG 4118.50, Box 5, File : Six decades of social
psychology). Fran Cherry (in press) also highlights the importance of this passage.

52
 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS

Here we are faced with two very different internalist historical accounts
produced by the same writer at about the same time, although for different
audiences. G. Allport (1968 a) revises the уепегаЬ1е#алг#юо£ chapter as a "textbook"
history (Kuhn, 1977 ; Ash, 1983) to insure ^conservative paradigmaticperseverance
and conformity to a legitimized ideal of social psychology (albeit based on origin
myth) ; G. Allport (1968 b), as part of a conference proposing changes for future
generations in graduate programmes for social psychologists, offers a more critical
appraisal and calls for the addition of historical context (and less awesome
methodologies).

THE VARIETIESOF HISTOR(Y/IES) OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOG(Y/IES) IN THE CONFERENCE

PAPERS

Unlike Allport, most of the contributors to the current volume were limited to
just one historical account. The collective variety of histor(y/ies) provided testifies
both to the growing pains, and to the increasing mastery of changing historiography
among those chronicling a subdiscipline such as social psychology. The international
conference in fact brought together a cross-section of scholars from sixteen
countries whose ideas were filtered through their own particular socio-historico-
cultural viewpoints, their choices of histor(y/ies) and their views about social
psycholog(y/ies). Some of the papers thus trace indigenous development,
paradigmatic expansion, or successes and failures of institutionalization (e.g.,
Pages, Vacher, 1993 ; McGuire, 1993 ; Parkovnick, 1992 ; Pellegrin, 1993 ; Lazinier,
1993) ; others stress the voluntary or not-so-voluntary importation of ideas, trans-
cultural problems of translation, intellectual imperialism and marginalization (e.g.,
Hotta, 1993 ; Haas, 1993 ; Moscovici, 1993 ; Collier^ a£ , 1993 ; van Elteren, 1993 ;
GougfretaL, 1992 ; Louw, Foster, 1992). In so doing, they all more or less explicitly
question the "universality" of a sub-discipline such as social psychology.
There is some variability in the definition of "what" delineates social psychology.
Apfelbaum (1993 a) highlights the paradox of trying to write about an object which
is "problematic" and whose very definition is contested on all disciplinary sides.
This wrestling with social psychology's existential or ontological "identity" — its
core or content — still continues (Maisonneuve,1992 ; Minton, 1993). I suggest
that it may in fact be a triple-identity problem involving its "conceptual contents",
its dual "disciplinary demarcation "(Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1988), compounded further
by its cultural specificities and transcultural variability (Collier et al , 1993 ; Flick,
1992 ; Good, Still, 1992 ; Paicheler, 1992 ; Vermès, Sellier, Ohayon, 1993 ; Jakobi,
1992 ; Hotta, 1993). Social psychology is variously treated by the conference
authors as : a problematic, an object, a subject-matter, a discipline, a sub-discipline,
a framework of analysis, two left-over and marginalized segments of sociology and
psychology, two competing streams in the anglophone world (psychological social
psychology and sociological social psychology) and three or more among
francophones (psycho-sociologie, psychologie sociale and socio-psychologie.)
There is thus no univocal domain of "social psychology" to which one can refer
without ambiguity. It seems to have developed, at different rates, in different places,
during the past century (give or take 30 years), although important precursors can

53
IAN LUBEK ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

be seen much earlier (Pages, Vacher, 1993 ; Apfelbaum, 1986). As for its
development, it is traceable using different intellectual indices : as a subject area,
research category, or conceptual framework (Parkovnick, 1992) ; as the title of a
textbook, journal or university course (G.Allport, 1954 ; Lubek, Apfelbaum, 1988 ;
Collier, Minton, Reynolds, 1991) ; as institutionalized academic discipline,
subdiscipline, trans-discipline (astride psychology and sociology) (cf. Good, Still,
1992) ; and, only after World War II, as a formal autonomous discipline, complete
with a graduate training programme for "social psychologists" at places such as the
University of Michigan (Lubek, Thorns, Bauer, 1992). Even after World War П,
social psychology remains manifold, especially in France (Apfelbaum, 1993a ;
Jakobi, 1992 ; Moscovici, 1993 ; Maissoneuve, 1992 ; Cordier, 1993).
Several papers specifically raise issues about the types of, and purposes for,
historical enquiry concerning social psychology (Apfelbaum, 1993 a ; Moscovici,
1993 ; Flick, 1992) ; and we are thus faced with a Marcus Antonius dilemma : Have
we come to praise or to bury social psychology ? Social psychology appears to be
a troublesome, multi-faceted sub-discipline, which, like Caesar, at times has been
at the leading edge of concern for people's problems ; at other times, it took
independent, and occasionally perhaps arrogant, self-centred turns, cutting itself off
from the social reality of the population, and either retreating into the isolation of
the grant-financed "ivory tower" or "selling its soul" to the applied needs of
industry, government and the armed forces. All the while, social psychology kept
itself busy with paradigmatic fine-tuning and fiddling, formation of a dynasty of
loyal court-followers, within-house theoretical debates accompanied by paradigmatic
and palace intrigues, and idolizing flings with positivism and the worship of
methodolatry (Apfelbaum, Lubek, 1976 ; Bakan, 1967 ; Danziger, 1990a ; Lubek,
1980 ; 1992 ; Moscovici, 1972, 1993 ; Parkovnick, 1992). Should we produce
laudatory, doxographic or apologetic histories in praise of Caesar, or critical,
contextualist histories that may have subversive, rallying and/or emancipatory
functions ? 57
Apfelbaum (1993 a) has suggested that the critical nature of historical enquiry
is linked to its constructive and heuristic functions for social psychology. Minton
( 1992) suggests the use of root metaphors in the study of history, while Moscovici
(1993) urges us to avoid antiquarian (gourmand) histories, in favour of a more
critical, "discerning" (gourmet) path. Rather then taking a "présentât" view and
tracing back the limited and specified roots of one dominant mainstream variation
of social psychology, the conference authors more often take an "historicist" look
at what social psychological questions were addressed, and with what meaning, in
a particular historical context. They then trace forward the development of these

57. See the varying answers proposed by Apfelbaum (1986 ; 1993a) ;Cerullo(1992) ; Danziger (1979 a)
Good, Still (1992) ; Hilgard, Leary, McGuire (1991) ; Minton (1986, 1992, 1993) ; Moscovici (1993)
Stocking (1965).

54
 ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS

roots, some of which get lost or tangled on the way to the present58. Such studies
offer new, emancipatory potential for understanding social psychology's present
state and its choices for the future.
Indeed, the conference papers constructively suggest new directions to follow
and new themes to be emphasized. Language (Moscovici, 1972) is a prime
candidate for réintégration into social psychology, as the interpersonal glue of social
life. Related topics, include communications, folk-culture, para-linguistics, metaphor,
argumentation, media, and a discursive perspective — cf. Antaki, Leudar (1992) ;
Cornwell, Hobbs (1992) ; Drouin (1992) ; Kroger, Wood (1992) ; van Elteren
(1992) ; Minton (1992). A second thematic axis involves the uses and abuses of
inter-personal influence and political power, including discrimination, the morality
of obedience, leadership, sexism, racism, authoritarianism, and the phenomena of
collective and/or mass psychology (cf. Carroy, 1993 ; Donzelli, 1991-2 ; 1993 ;
Giami, 1993 ; Goughetal. 1992 ; Haas, 1993 ; Louw, Foster, 1992 ; Minton, 1992 ;
Parkovnick, 1992 ;Reynié, 1993). The trans-generational social influence processes
via socialization, imitation, social representation, education, and small group
dynamics may represent a third pole of study. (Collier et al, 1993 ; Gateaux-
Mennecier, 1993 ; Flick, 1992 ; Parkovnick, 1992 ; Romay-Martinez, 1993 ; Tardif,
Gauthier, 1992 ; van Elteren, 1993).
Several papers suggest additional avenues for social psychology, as well : Flick
( 1 992) suggests that the epistemological version of the study of everyday knowledge
can lead to a social psychology of knowledge ; Cerullo (1992) proposes that a
second stage be launched in social psychology using the social constructionist
perspective — the study of social morality ; Minton (1992) suggests the use of
metaphor as an analytical tool in the study of social psychology and its history ;
Minton (1993) also advocates stronger links between social psychology and real-
world practice, and utilization of its potential emancipatory power.

58. Thus Kroger and Wood (1992) trace, and bring back to the forefront, Wundt's lost social psychological
project to study language, Drouin (1 992) examines the long history of non-verbal communication, Comwell
and Hobbs ( 1 992) bring back the elements of cultural socialization and transmission involving rumour,
folktales, myths and legends ; McGuire (1993) discusses critically the transition of a moral code of normative
behaviour between moral philosophy and the social science precursors of social psychology ; Costall (1992)
examines the elimination of Bartlett's socio-cultural perspective from British (social) psychology and its
effect of removing the "social" from British psychology ; Carroy (1993) and Donzelli (1991-1992 ; 1993)
re-link social psychology to one of its earliest interests, from the 1890s onward, in crowd and collective
behaviour ; Reynié (1993) re-establishes the ties to evolving XlXth century political theory ; Tardif and
Gauthier (1992), Gateaux-Mennecier (1993), and Romay-Martinez (1993) each re-link social psychology
to the history of the development of the child and the various social agencies (schools, asylums, etc.) dealing
with normal and abnormal children, from the XVIIth century onward ; Pages and Vacher ( 1 993) , in a detailed
and encyclopedic overview, accompanied by an elaborate analytic schemata, draw attention to important
XVIIIth and XlXth century French social psychological community experiments predating Comte ; here,
the experimental spirit was linked to the real world (cf. Pages, 1986). In the same critical spirit, van Elteren
(1992, 1 993) re-evaluates Lewinian social psychological analyses of work and methodological inventiveness.

55
IAN LUBEK ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

This conference, and the publication of its papers, may permit us to continue
collectively our critical retrospective views of the past, our critical suggestions for
new conceptual terrains for current and future social psychology (Apfelbaum,
1 993a) , and our critical exploration of historiographical choices for more complete,
multi-faceted histor(y/ies) of social psycholog(y/ies).
It is perhaps ironic that the conference was organized in France (Blanchet etal ,
1992), where social psychology as a research area and as a teaching field for
graduate and undergraduate students has been receiving increasingly less institutional
support (e.g. , in the universities and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) .
Similarly,
somewhat of "doing
a marginal
history"
activity.
of a A scientific
conference
discipline
and special
is also
journal
viewed
issues
as which
being

consolidate
"lone" researchers
previously
fromscattered
around research
the world,
andserves
help promote
also a certain
networking
legitimating
among
function. In the case of the critical, complex, creative and multi-constructed
historiographie approaches mentioned above, historians of social psycholog(y/ies)
seem to have already advanced past the celebratory "textbook" stage (G. Allport,
1954 ; 1968 a ; 1985) and, through the use of critical history, may now be able to
assist with the generative development and/or reshaping of social psychology's
objects and applications in a variety of institutional and geo-cultural settings.

IAN LUBEK
Psychology Department
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, NIG 2W1
Canada

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