Seeking Social Grounds for Social Psychology

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Theory & Science (2002)

ISSN: 1527-5558

Seeking Social Ground !or Social "ychology

#d$in #% GanBrigham Young [email protected]

'ichard N% illiaBrigham Young University

*+rac

This paper argues that contemporary social psychologicaltheory and method, as manifest in the mainstream of thediscipline, necessarily renders an account of human naturethat is fundamentally individual and nonsocial. Theconse!uence of this theoretical position is that socialpsychology is not genuinely or importantly socialpsychology at all. "e argue further that as long as socialpsychological theory is not grounded in understandings ofourselves that are inherently social and meaningful, it #illbe unable to provide for a discourse about human socialityfaithful to our o#n e$perience of ourselves as moral andmeaningma%ing beings. To illustrate the central problemof social psychology, the paper discusses contemporaryand traditional research and theori&ing in altruism,concentrating particularly on #ell%no#n #or% in bystanderintervention. "e conclude that contemporary #or% in thisarea fails to ade!uately capture either the phenomenon or

its social nature. 'n alternative grounding for socialpsychological theory and research is offered from the #or%of the (rench phenomenologist, Emmanuel )evinas. Thisperspective sho#s that the social is not derivative from theindividual nor from an aspect of individual rationality.*ather the innately social is grounded in the innatelyethical obligation #hich forms the foundation for all humansocial behavior.

Seeking Social Ground !or Social "ychology

"ithin the broad field of contemporary psychology, social psychology long ago carved out an identitybased on its ta%ing particular account of the human social #orld and the influences on behavior that

derive from our participation in it. 'ccording to Gordon 'llport +-/0, for e$ample, social psychology isbest defined as the discipline that uses scientific methods in 1an attempt to understand and e$plain ho#the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or impliedpresence of other human beings2 +p. 0. This definitional statement has en3oyed general agreementamong social psychologists for nearly half a century. 4ndeed, 'llport5s definition has become somethingof a staple in social psychology te$tboo%s +cf., 'ronson, "ilson, 6 '%ert, --78 Brehm 6 9assin, --:8(eldman, --8 (ran&oi, --:8 Tesser, --0.

"e are a#are of the obvious fact that social psychology is, at present, a theoretically diverse intellectualenterprise. 4n recent years a number of socalled 1postmodern2 perspectives +e.g., social constructionist,deconstructionist, ethnographic, critical theory, and symbolic interactionist0 have found their #ay into thediscipline and its literature. ;ome of the analysis and criticisms #e ma%e here of 1social psychology2 donot apply to all or, perhaps, any of these alternative perspectives. *ather our analysis is directedprimarily to #hat appears still to be the mainstream of the discipline, 3udging from, and as represented

in, the leading 3ournals and te$tboo%s of the field. 4t is this historically cohesive body of #or% that mostdirectly descends from and relies upon 'llport5s definitional #or%.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Because of this, each mind is understood to be private and internal, fundamentally isolated from otherminds. =ther persons can be %no#n only as, and insofar as, they can be brought into the mind by someprocess of representation. "e do not %no# persons directly, but merely our o#n ideas of persons.Jo#ever, because any individual mind is cut off from direct ac!uaintance #ith #hat is to be represented,because the other person also e$ists as profound sub3ectivity, the process of representation is al#ays, at#orst, in principle inade!uate, and at best, al#ays in !uestion. That is, our %no#ledge of another personis, in some #ay, a guess or an assumption made based on our o#n sub3ectivity. But, #e are never

confident that our o#n assumptions are good, and thus #e are never entirely confident of the otherperson nor of the nature and !uality of our interpersonal relationships.

(rom the beginning of the modern period to the present, then, the individual has been ta%en to be either+a0 the site of sensory receptivity and reflection +e.g., empiricism0 or +b0 the source of meaninggivingand conceptual organi&ation of #hat #ould other#ise be meaningless sensory e$perience +e.g.,rationalism0.


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causal e$planation is that persons come to be thought of as mere instances of some more fundamentalprocess or as particular representatives of some more basic category of things. =nce the net#or% ofcasual influences is laid out and fully understood, there is nothing left over to be e$plained. =r, if there issomething left over, it is conceived to be 1error variance,2 rather than an essential constituting feature ofhuman being.

Given that many social psychologists might ob3ect to our contention that their discipline is deterministicin such a hard and uncompromising #ay, it might be useful to approach the criticism by another route. 4tis clear, and #e believe irrefutable, that social psychology relies heavily on 1situationism2 in itse$planatory pro3ect. This contention is reinforced by classical +e.g., 'sch, -8 ;herif 6 ;herif, -H0 as#ell as more recent #or% +e.g, *oss 6 Fisbett, --8 *odrigues 6 )evine, ---0. 4f, ho#ever, humansocial behavior can be e$plained in terms of situational influences, then since situations are, at least inprinciple, finite and specifiable, such forms of e$planation are no less reductive than other species ofdeterminism. 4n such a perspective, it is the 1po#er of the situation2 +*oss 6 Fisbett, --0 thatdetermines the course of individual human behavior. The person is seen as little more than thebehavioral byproduct of certain specifiable situational determinants.

her a Source o! In!luence

*eferring once more to 'llport5s characteri&ation of social psychology, it is clear that other people

constitute an important aspect of the social milieu that the discipline see%s to e$plain. Jo#ever, it is alsoclear that, under the rubric of that conception of social psychology, others are important chiefly #henunderstood to be purveyors of possible influence, acting in concert #ith a net#or% of other influencesthat compose the social #orld. 4t is thepresenceof the other person#hether actual, imagined, orimpliedthat is ta%en to be important and influential in the thought, feeling and behavior of theindividual under study. The presence of others in social psychology is not necessarily, nor even mostimportantly, the presence of other human beings #ith #hom one is genuinely related in a meaningful ormorally profound #ay. *ather, the other person is a uni!ue sort of stimulus configuration seen to+passively0 possess varying degrees of certain attributes #hich e$ert causal influence in given situations.

ainstream social psychology, has been, and continues to be, firmly committed to the metaphysics andmethods of traditional e$perimental psychology, #hich, as it evolved in the present age, has attemptedto borro# methods and metaphysical assumptions from the natural sciences +cf.,


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(urther, #here there is no meaningfulness at the foundation of human activity such activity can have nogenuine moral content. 4f the #orld of human social involvement is simply a causally necessitated one,as much of contemporary social psychology #ould seem to suggest, then it becomes conceptuallyindefensible to ascribe any differential moral #orth to any human actions that happen to ta%e place inthat #orld. (or e$ample, as ;life and "illiams +--0 point out, 1"e might meaningfully say that it isbad thatthe act happened. Jo#ever, to say it is bad thatan act occurred is not the same thing as sayingthat the act itselfis bad2 +p. :, italics in the original0. 4ndeed, even to claim that it is bad that an event

occurred re!uires some criterion for ma%ing such a 3udgment. 4n short, if #e assume, #ith the ma3orityof mainstream social psychology, that human action is causally necessitated, then it is difficult to imagineany legitimate criterion by #hich to ma%e such 3udgments. 4f the course and outcome of a particularevent is fundamentally determined in a field of causal variables, there #ould seem to be no viablegrounds upon #hich to assert that it should have been other#ise than it #asand, thus, no viablegrounds for asserting the moral #orth of one behavioral occurrence over another.

4t should be pointed out here, ho#ever, that most social psychologists #ould probably e$emptthemselves from the criticism being leveled here. ost social psychologists are undoubtedly dra#n to thediscipline out of a genuine interest in human behavior as manifest in seemingly meaningful and richlyvaried social conte$ts, #here other persons are #oven into the behaviors they see% to understand. Theyrarely consider the philosophical underpinnings of the heavily situational 1approach2 the discipline hasofficially adopted, granting instead, that persons are engaged interactively #ith their social #orld, andnot as mechanically determined as the present analysis suggests. The point of our criti!ue, ho#ever, is

that it is deeply problematic for a discipline such as social psychology to have, on the one hand, an1official2 philosophical preunderstanding that 3ustifies disciplinary claims to scientific status, and, on theother hand, another set of operating hypotheses that contradict those very foundationalpreunderstandings and regard the sub3ect of study in a very different #ay. The social psychologist #homay sense the mechanism and determinism at the heart of the enterprise of social psychology and try toovercome it by assuming that people are active agents in their o#n social behavior is left #ith a ve$ingproblemM ho# to be true to the thesis of situational determinism that defines the discipline, and yet allo#persons to be sub3ect to such social forces, #hile at the same time ine$plicably able to resist them.Unfortunately, in our e$perience, the most fre!uent account of ho# persons can resist the social forcesaround them simply invo%es the action of other social forces #hich enable them to do so. ;uch anapproach, of course, begs the !uestion.

T$o oncluion *+ou oneorary Social "ychology

oneorary Social "ychology i Inherenly Neiher Social Nor ,oral

's our analysis of 'llport5s +and others50 description of the field suggests, contemporary socialpsychology can arguably be seen to be not social at all, at least insofar as its theoretical accounts seemto invo%e a hollo#, nonsocial realm of causal variables as e$planation of the richly social realm ofhuman action. =f course, #e are not alone in ma%ing this criticism +see, for e$ample, Jarre, --H8oscovici, -7C8 Taylor 6 Bro#n, -AD0. ;till, #e feel it #orth repeating here because it bears so heavilyon the !uestion of #hat the discipline might gain from the #or% of )evinas. 's #e have seen, socialpsychology is essentially the study of individuals as influenced by social variables. 4n this sense,ho#ever, it can be considered social only in the sense that the variables come pac%aged in human formand in that the resultant actions ta%e place most often in ostensibly social settings. These settings, inturn, are social only because they consist of other peoplepeople #ho appear only as either +a0 thepurveyors of social influence or +b0 responders to other social variables. Thus, as #e maintained in the

beginning of this article, contemporary social psychology is most properly understood as a branch ofe$perimental psychology, a branch #here the variables under consideration come pac%aged in humancontainers.

4n order to support our assertion that contemporary social psychology cannot render a meaningfulaccount of moral behavior, #e must first clarify #hat #e ta%e 1moral2 to mean, and ho# #e ought to tal%about it. >ut simply, #e #ill spea% of moral as anything that ma%es a meaningful difference in the lives ofother persons +"illiams 6 Gantt, --A0. Thus, all !uestions or acts that ma%e such a meaningfuldifference are moral. learly, then, all fundamentally social acts are also fundamentally moral to thee$tent that others are necessarily and meaningfully involved. 4n fact, it #ould not be inappropriate to saythat the moral and the social are really 3ust t#o sides of the same coin. 4n this light, then, it could beargued that mainstream social psychology deals directly #ith the moral because many or even most actsof interest to the discipline 1ma%e a difference2 to others. This seems to us to be implicit in the definitionof the field offered by 'llport. Jo#ever, if socalled social behavior is really only the la#ful and necessary

result of the influences of variables conveyed by others, then it is not unreasonable to suppose thatreactions to that behavior are li%e#ise the la#ful and necessary results of influences of variables. Theresult of this is that the difference the behavior may ma%e to another person is, ultimately,


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epiphenomenal, and therefore, not genuinely meaningful nor social. The sociality is, in some sense,coincidental. The others #ho might be affected by the behavior are influenced by it primarily in terms ofits stimulus properties, by the variables it occasions, mediated by their o#n cognitive capacities and theiro#n reinforcement histories. There is nothing innately social nor moral about a behavior thus conceived.To more fully articulate this conclusion, ho#ever, it #ill be useful to turn attention to one of the classicareas of research and theori&ing in mainstream social psychologyM bystander intervention. This is aparticularly appropriate phenomenon to discuss in light of the fact that the sub3ect itself presents a clear

and poignant e$ample of a fundamentally social and moral behavior that is rendered asocial and amoralby the usual accounts of it offered #ithin the mainstream of the discipline.

i!!uion o! 'eoni+iliy and 3yander Iner/enion

4n -:/, 9itty Genovese #as beaten and stabbed to death #hile returning to her Fe# Yor% ityapartment. 'lthough certainly tragic, it #as not, in itself, a novel occurrence. "hat #as unusual abouts. Genovese5s death, ho#ever, #as that no less than thirtyeight of her neighbors came to their#indo#s in the middle of the night heard her screams for help but did nothing. 4n fact, most remained attheir #indo#s #atching the bloody spectacle for the full thirtyfive minutes that it too% the attac% to end.Fot once during the entire event did anyone of her neighbors come to her aid8 indeed, no one so muchas lifted the phone to notify the police that the attac% #as ta%ing place until it #as far too late +see*osenthal, -:/0.

'ccording to


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itself0 and internal +i.e., perceptual biases, social e$pectations, selfmonitoring, desire for socialapprobation, heuristic reasoning strategies, etc.0 to the individual #itness.

4t might be argued, contrary to our line of analysis, that


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person is causally dictated by the comple$ interplay of environmental and cognitive variables, thatresponse cannot entail any real moral #orth.

4n conclusion, t#o observations from the #or% on bystander intervention are most relevant for ourdiscussion. (irst, the other person asperson has not been an especially important factor in e$plainingand theori&ing about the moral act of helpful intervention. The needy one, her characteristics, and herrelation to the bystander, are only sources of information to be used in the comple$ cognitivemachinations that are the real determiners of the 1moral2 act. Thus, from this traditional perspective,there is nothing innately social about altruistic, helping acts. ;econd, and relatedly, the same sort ofdeliberative process must precede intervention regardless of #hether the source of the information is asituational event or a person #ith a face. There is nothing in the theory to suggest that a bystander #illrespond differently to a cry for help than to a message on his email, even though #e have someintuitive sense that one surely #ould. Thus, because in these theoretical accounts, information +notfaces0 drives altruism, there, again, is nothing innately social about the process of helping. This is anillustration, at once interesting and troubling, that the theories of social psychology often violate ourintuitions and our e$perience.

#anuel 4e/ina: n Grounding Social "ychology in he #hical

'ny paper such as this, aimed at a broad analysis of a substantive issue, #ill be able to present only

abbreviated forms of the alternative positions that respond to the analytical problems raised. Thus, #ecan offer here only a brief introduction to some of the ideas #e have encountered in our reading of)evinas that #e believe address in creative and evocative #ays the fundamental inade!uacies ofcontemporary social psychology. To do so, #e #ill dra# mostly upon themes found in )evinas5s firstma3or #or%, Totality and Infinity+-:?-:-0. This is li%ely his most #idely %no#n #or%, and, perhaps,his most accessible.

4e/ina and he .oundaion o! Socialiy

'lthough the #or% of )evinas is not, according to many scholars +ohen, --/8 (arley, --:8 Gantt 6"illiams, CDDC0, postmodern in its substance and intent, at least #ithin the broad contemporarypostmodern, deconstructive, and poststructuralist movements, it does address in a creative #ay theproblems #ith #hich the postmodern 1counter culture2 has concerned itself. ore clearly than other

1postmodern2 thin%ers, )evinas5s #or% overcomes the individualism of our age and offers the possibilityfor a genuine and fundamental sociality +;chrag, --70. Je manages to do this in a #ay that preservesindividuality as essential to morality and meaningful relationships, #hile not falling into an individualismdestructive of those very things. 's #e shall argue, he is also able to avoid naive communalism and therelativism #hich so easily besets so many other theories that see% to ground our humanity solely inconte$t, interpretation, and discourse +cf., Gantt, ---0. )evinas5s account of human life is not merely ane$ercise in speculative metaphysics. *ather, its foundation is a careful phenomenology of our concretelived e$perience as social beings.

The hallmar% of modern accounts of our human nature has been its granting of ontological priority to thepersonal self, manifested as mind, soul, or intellect. 's an essentially private rationality, each of usencounters the other in a realm outside our o#n e$istence, as a peculiar sort of ob3ect of our perception.Because of this, the being of the other must be reconciled someho# #ith the immediacy of our o#ne$perience. The classical problem of 1other minds2 is the result of the ontological priority given to self.This problem is usually solved by inferring that the other is essentially li%e me, in some sense, anotherinstance of the selfliterally, an alter ego. y esteem for the other, and my concern is an inferenceultimately grounded in selfesteem and selfconcern. )evinas, ho#ever, reverses the ontological priority,grounding the e$istence of the self, and thus, in important #ays, the very ontological status of the self,in the prior e$istence of the other. ;imply put, #ithout the otherness of the otherthe other than selfpree$isting the self, there are no reasons for the self to 1be,2 and no grounds or conte$t #ithin #hich theself can appear at all +cf., )evinas, -7A0. 's Gantt +--:0 has stated, 1one cannot even begin torecogni&e one5s o#n consciousness sufficient to comprehend and name it for oneself e$cept incontradistinction to the absolute priority of that #hich is other than one5s self8 the infinite surplus of thee$istence of another, in the face of #hom 4 discover my o#n humanity2 +p. H/0. (or )evinas, theessence of the humanity discovered in the face of the other is an infinite ethical responsibility to not onlyhave our o#n pro3ects and #ants be called into !uestion by them, but to care for them. =ur immediaterelationship to the other is one of ethical obligation. This description of the encounter #ith the other is insharp contrast #ith the problemit&ation of the other as bearer of variables and source of influence, #hichis the legacy of the #or% of 'llport and other %ey figures in the founding of modern social psychology.


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"hen the other +of necessity, a person0 #ho has a face appears, she resists our efforts to 1totali&e2toma%e the other a part of the selfin a #ay that other aspects of the #orld do not. The primordiale$perience of the other is not as an instrument of our o#n purposes. 4n this #ay, )evinas offers analternative to hedonism as a primordial motivation. "e do not derive our sociality from hedonisticconcern. *ather, hedonistic concern is a response made possible by our innate sociality, by theperception, occasioned by the presence of the other, that one is in competition #ith others for scarceresources. Thus, in the other #e do not see ourselves, but #e receive the possibility for acting asselves,

as oneself-for-an-other +cf., )evinas, -:-0. 4ronically, it is in this process of being thus 1called out2 ofourselves that the self emerges. The selfthat part of us #e e$perience as ourselvesis the product ofan innately and profoundly social e$perience. ;ociality predates individual identity and selfa#arenessboth logically and chronologically. ;ociality is not the product of our o#n private cognitive and rationalprocesses occasioned by our trying to ma%e sense of other people as 1food for thought.2

Even as )evinas is describing the self as radically social in this #ay, he does not entirely dissolve theprivate self. To do so #ould ma%e inevitable 1diffusion of responsibility2 on a grand scale. ;uch a radicaldiffusion of individual identity #ould obviate the possibility of moral action. 4t is important, therefore,that )evinas begins #ith and preserves interiority even in the midst of grounding our being in obligationto the other. This interiority does not, of course, reduce to the sub3ectivity of the isolated modern ego#hich #e find in contemporary social psychology, and even in the #or% of 'llport himself. *ather, for)evinas, interiority is metaphysically innocent. 4t is that sense, incumbent in each person, that he or sheis not simply the product of larger social or moral processes, but distinctly individual, and thus ethically

becausesociallyresponsible. 4n fact, it is because our ethical obligations are so e$!uisitely particular,they are intensely ours, and cannot be diminished by appeal to abstract principles of fairness andreciprocity, nor by shunting them off to others. 4t is, )evinas +-A0 says, %no#ing that 14 am 4 in thesole measure that 4 am responsible, a noninterchangeable 42 +p. D0.

This distinctiveness in interiority, ho#ever, does not resist others. 4t does not manifest itself as afundamental tension bet#een the individual and the society. *ather such interiority and distinctivenessour very individualityre!uires other people. 4t re!uires sociality. =ne can only be an individual by virtueof occupying a uni!ue situationbeing called into relationships uni!uely by others to #hom one isuni!uely confrontedM 4 am #ho 4 am by virtue of my relatedness #ith others8 4 am the father of thischild, the husband of this #ife, the teacher of this student, the neighbor of this stranger, and so on. Eachof these relationships calls me, and only me, to ethical response. y identity is my responsibility, and myresponsibility is the fundamental feature of a shared, primordial sociality.

4n summary, then, isolated sub3ectivity is not the beginning point of human e$perience. *ather it is aresponse to the presence of the other. 4n fact, as )evinas sho#s, both sub3ectivity and ob3ectivity derivefrom the =ther +cf., )evinas, -:-, pp. -/C/D0. =ne important benefit of beginning in and preservinginteriority is that it ma%es it clear #hose obligation it is #hen one is confronted #ith and called intorelationships of obligation. The obligation, for )evinas, cannot diffuse because the interiority, #herein #eare distinct, is never compromised. "e do not diffuse into the other and thus lose our sense ofobligation. The other ma%es clear both the obligation, and the fact that it is mine.

;ince the other occasions our spea%ing of the #orld at all, and thus occasions our being #ho #e are, #eare not, in that important senseat all#ithout those others to #hom #e stand in obligation. (or)evinas, the obligation is infinite and asymmetrical. ontemporary social psychological thin%ing, #hen itdoes ta%e up the problem of the other, generally, because it begins #ith an assumption of the primacy ofindividual egos, must e$plain our sense of obligation in one of t#o #ays. (irst, contemporary socialtheory can suggest that #e feel such obligation to others because #e recogni&e them as being 1li%e us,2and therefore, our obligation is really selfinterest. =r, alternatively, #e assume that if #e fulfill ourobligations to themtreat them #ellthey #ill fulfill a similar reciprocal obligation to us, and thus oursense of obligation is, again, merely selfinterest.

4n contrast, )evinas proposes that #e are #ho #e are by virtue of our ethical relatedness to the other,and since that relation is not based on any assumptions of reciprocity, it is, in effect, an infiniteobligation. 4t transcends those others #ith #hom #e may 3ust happen to come into direct conflict, ande$tends beyond them, to yet others before #hom any particular other might stand in relationships ofobligation. "e are fundamentally social beings, not by virtue of social structures in #hich #e findourselves, nor by virtue of rationally appealing commitments, but by virtue of a fundamental and infiniteobligation. Because this obligation is the source of identity, and lies prior to conceptuali&ation, sociality isgenuinely fundamental. Grounded in this obligation then, a social psychology might be truly and nontrivially social.

4f sociality and morality +manifest in ethical obligation0 are connected as #e have argued earlier, then asocial psychology grounded in a genuine sociality #ill be a genuinely ethical discipline. 4t #ould be a


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social psychology that #ould see% to articulate the fundamentally ethical character of our relations andsocial e$changes #ith one another, opening a discourse #ithin #hich the parameters of ethical life #ouldemerge as the primary sub3ect matter. ;ince )evinas5s understanding of our sociality begins in a prereflective ethical obligation, a social psychology faithful to that understanding #ould not privilege thecognitive and the rational in accounting for the influence of other beings in our social responses. 't thesame time, this understanding #ould erase the barriers that have long insulated the individual ego fromothers. 's #e have argued else#here +"illiams 6 Gantt, --A0, the recognition of ethical obligation as

the grounds for selfhood ma%es genuine human intimacy possible. ' social psychology thus grounded#ould not begin #ith the thesis that individuality must be overcome in order to establish intimacy, butthat the false consciousness of individualism must be overcome so that intimacy may reveal itself.

4n this light, altruism in its meaningful form becomes not merely possible at times of e$treme duress orenvironmental emergency, but it becomes the essential prototype of human social interaction. This turnsthe tables on contemporary social psychology. Under the regime of current theori&ing, the !uestion hasbeen ho# to understand and arrange the conditions under #hich altruism is li%ely to emerge. =r, moregenerally, ho# can altruism e$ist in the conte$t of theories that presuppose an indigenous selfishnessand a universe of social variables acting upon us at the level of this very nature +cf., Gantt 6 *eber,CDDD0. 'ltruism, for these reasons, is a problem. Given a ne# grounding in the ethical phenomenology ofEmmanuel )evinas, ho#ever, altruism is the e$pected response to the call of the other, #hich callpredates our o#n sense of self as self. The problem then is understanding ho# people come to beoblivious to the ethical obligation to act in the interest of others, and the elaborate social and personal

machinations by #hich the sense of obligation is e$tinguished. >ut in its harshest terms, forcontemporary social psychology the problem is ho# to e$plain altruism. (or social psychology informedby )evinas, the problem is, as it should be, ho# to e$plain murder.

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