‘Americanization’ of European Social Psychology

Abstract

To multiply experiments in order to rediscover what is obvious can only lead to a paradoxical situation. In fact, the principal raison d’être of experimental method is to invent and validate new consequences of a theory or to produce unexpected effects. (Moscovici, 1972: 38)

Social psychology has certainly not succeeded in creating an intellectual revolution in the sense of deeply affecting our views of human nature. … Instead of a revolution, there has been a slight tremor. (Tajfel, 1972: 106)

I am delighted to have an opportunity to respond to Sandra Schruijer’s thoughtful article ‘Whatever happened to the “European” in European social psychology?’ She raises important questions connecting ‘the ambitions and activities’ of the founders of the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology (EAESP) and the contemporary state of affairs of the Association, wondering whether – or to what extent – these ambitions have been fulfilled. Sandra Schruijer draws on Moscovici and Marková’s (2006) book The Making of Modern Social Psychology which discusses the history of European social psychology after the Second World War, the establishment of the EAESP in the context of the Cold War, dictatorship regimes in Latin America and other economic, social and political events at that time.

Sandra Schruijer’s article concerns a specific historical event and, rightly, she collected ‘data’, chose the method of analysis and interpretation that would be chosen by a historian, but not by an experimental social psychologist. As Isaiah Berlin (1963: 78–9) argued, history is neither inductive nor deductive science. It studies events as unique, being interdependent with time and space in which they take place. Historians attempt ‘to capture the unique pattern and peculiar characteristics of its particular subject; not to be an X-ray which eliminates all but what a great many subjects have in common’ (ibid.: 91).

On the one hand, Schruijer points out that institutionally, over the years, the European Association has been greatly successful as it is reflected in an ever-increasing membership, in the high ranking of the European Journal of Social Psychology among other journals, in various publications, different kinds of conferences and other initiatives. On the other hand, if one leaves the institutional side and focuses on the content of her interviewees’ perspectives, she finds their disappointment due to ‘Americanization’ of social psychology in terms of ‘culture and thinking’, the contemporary narrowness of our discipline, and ‘hegemony of experimentation’ based on ‘positivistic psychology’. Since the European Journal of Social Psychology is THE Journal of the European Association, Schruijer follows its history and not the history of other journals, whether European or American. She notes that the European Journal of Social Psychology publishes more and more papers by American authors; European authorship is dominated by the Dutch, German and British; publications from some other European countries appear to a lesser extent and hardly ever does the Journal publish papers by East European authors.

Sandra Schruijer expresses a number of interesting ideas that one might like to follow up and develop, but I shall focus here only on the question of the ‘Americanization’ of European social psychology. ‘Americanization’ is one of the main themes she raises with respect to her own interpretations of historical accounts, her interviewees’ comments, and as a possible explanation of the present state of European social psychology.

‘Americanization’ of social psychology (e.g. Farr, 1996; Graumann, 1988; van Strien, 1997) and social sciences (e.g. Manicas, 1987; Trommler, 2004) became one of the established terms in postwar social science. For example, Trommler (2004) discusses the ‘Americanization’ of sociology in terms of re-education programmes in Germany after the war. Such programmes emphasized the use of ‘objective’ survey techniques and statistical methods of American social science against the traditional speculative German sociology. In contrast, ‘Americanization’ of social psychology is usually associated with notions like ‘the individualization of the social’, ‘experimentation’, ‘methodological solipsism’, ‘a voluntary intellectual submission’, ‘scientific colonization’, and so on.

Talking and writing about history is pervaded with problems of anachronism. Historical events are always constructed and reconstructed against the background of specific socio-political phenomena and these may or may not be captured in the contemporary understanding and interpretation of past events. In our case, meanings of ‘Americanization’ have changed over time together with social scientific preferences and evaluations of socio-political phenomena. In Schruijer’s article, ‘Americanization’ implies both positive and negative connotations, the latter ones being derived largely from comments of some of her interviewees.

If we assume the existence of a phenomenon called ‘Americanization’, let us ask what reasons are there for its existence, and who has brought it about: Americans, Europeans, or both? And, is it still meaningful, today, to talk about ‘Americanization’ of social psychology? In view of these questions, I shall make two points.

1 ‘Americanization’ in the past

Help or ‘colonization’?

Social psychology was institutionally established in the USA during the Second World War and its aftermath, while other social sciences had already flourished before the war (Nuttin, 1954; Moscovici and Marková, 2006). The Americans were rightly convinced that in order to establish social psychology as a science, the discipline had to become international. Comparative studies, sponsored by the Organization for Comparative Social Research in the USA, promoted strategies that encouraged visibility and cooperation of social sciences. In social psychology, as part of these efforts, as well as part of the American programme to revitalize European universities and encourage social sciences in Europe after the war, Schachter designed the study on rejection and threat, known as the seven countries studies (Schachter et al., 1954). One can say, today, that the aims of Schachter’s comparative study were ambiguous: they involved both an attempt to build social psychology in the United States and also the mission to train social psychologists in Europe and to encourage their research. This was seen by some interviewees as ‘Americanization’ because the study was designed in the USA and transported into European countries as if it were equally relevant to European conditions. However, some European participants of the Schachter comparative study did not necessarily take a negative view of that research and did not view it as ‘colonization’. At that time, Leon Festinger was one of the leading social psychologists and he did not agree with exporting American research to Europe in the way Schachter did it. Recently, one of the original participants commented to me on Festinger’s criticism of Schachter’s study, saying that Festinger did not appreciate the importance of that research for building cooperation, and for encouraging contact among researchers: ‘I said to Leon Festinger: you do not understand how much work we put into it and how important it was for us!’

The situation with respect to the involvement of American social psychologists in Europe turned different later, in the 1960s, and in particular during the formation of the EAESP. Europeans wanted to develop their own Association and did not want to be ‘colonized’.

Admiration of the USA

The second point about the after-war ‘Americanization’ is related to the fact that the United States was a leading superpower economically, intellectually and politically. European scholars went to the USA in large numbers to learn and to bring their experience back to their home countries. They were supported by generous grants from American foundations as well as by the USA government. It is not surprising that what came from the United States to Europe, whether it was science, cars, or home products, was viewed as ‘superior’.

Admiration of American social science and social psychology continues until today, indeed, it has become a world phenomenon. When I visited Beijing in 2009 I was struck by the fact that Chinese colleagues and students used American rather than their own textbooks of social psychology. They copied American research even if it was not relevant to their local conditions, and made an immense effort to publish in American journals. Is it part of an international competition similar to that we once experienced during the Cold War when the Soviets were building ‘higher’ skyscrapers than the Americans, were sending ‘more’ rockets into space and trained ‘better’ ballet dancers than the Americans? As in Europe, the social scientific evaluation of research in China is largely based on publishing in American journals with high impact factors.

2 ‘Americanization’ today?

If we consider these two points today, we find that they have had different destinies. The first issue that was prominent in the 1950s and 1960s has largely disappeared. Social psychology in the USA is strong and Europeans no longer need American training and missionary activities. If many Americans today are members of the European Association of Social Psychology, and if they publish in the European Journal, we may assume that it is not in order to internationalize or ‘Americanize’ European social psychology. Rather, we may assume that they find participation in European collaboration an appealing activity. It gives researchers an opportunity to travel, meet colleagues across continents and publish in a journal that is very similar to American journals in terms of style, content, experimentation, analytic techniques and the prestige. Schruijer notes that over the years the number of publications by American colleagues has been increasing. To complement the author’s observations, many publications are joint papers by Europeans, Australians and North Americans. Readers of these papers might wonder why particular countries and continents have been selected for specific studies, but no answer suggests itself except that colleagues and friends were available to collect the ‘same data’ in their respective countries or continents. This suggestion seems to be confirmed by the fact that these publications are impeccable in terms of predictions, validations of hypotheses and sophistication in techniques analysing the data. However, they do not inform readers about socio-political, historical, or other contexts in which questionnaires were distributed or experiments carried out. And as Schruijer notes, publications are based almost exclusively on experiments using student populations. Since this comparative research rarely analyses in any depth local conditions in which these studies are carried out, one can assume that their priority is the search for universality of findings. These very issues, i.e. ‘universality’ versus ‘local variations’, were already at the centre of attention of the Transnational Committee during the 1960s (see ‘The Story of “a Two-year or a Ten-year Report”’ in Moscovici and Marková, 2006).

3 The question of social knowledge

It is here that we need to reflect and go beyond numbers and statistical indicators. We need to ask a basic epistemological question which, I assume, Sandra Schruijer has in mind: what kind of knowledge do these publications deliver and in what respect do they fulfil the ambitions and activities of the founders of EAESP and the Journal? What would Henri Tajfel (1972), say, today, when he brusquely dismissed ‘Experiments in vacuum’ and referred to trivialities accounting causally for social behaviour in terms of general laws and the neglect of interaction between the social context and social conduct? In the same book Tajfel refers to Serge Moscovici as saying: ‘We need more ideas, not more experiments; any provocative theory would be preferable to the inductive collecting of bits and pieces that has become our respectable habit’ (ibid.: 4; see also Moscovici, 1972: 38 and 47). Equally, other founding members of the Association like Gustav Jahoda and Ragnar Rommetveit, as well as those who followed their tradition like Hilde Himmelweit, Willem Doise and Denise Jodelet among many others, had an aspiration to create the kind of social psychology that responded to major social and political concerns of the time. They continuously posed themselves the question: ‘What is “social” about social psychology?’

In the preface to the 1st edition of La Psychanalyse Moscovici (1961) argues that social psychology has a unique position among social sciences, between sociology and social anthropology. As an example, he discusses specifically the question of knowledge. He thinks that it is epistemology of social psychology that reflects the strategic position of our discipline. Moscovici focuses, in this context, on views of social psychology as expressed by two very different social scientists: Emil Durkheim and Georgi Plechanov. Nevertheless, these two had something in common: both were concerned with the study of social knowledge. While Durkheim studied social knowledge in the realm of sociology, Plechanov, as a political philosopher, drew attention to possible contributions of social psychology to the theory of social knowledge. Durkheim and Plechanov, from their different positions, anti-Marxist and Marxist, respectively, thought that the strategic position of social psychology rested in the potential of our discipline to act in response to contemporary political, historical and social phenomena. Likewise, let us remind ourselves that at the beginning of the 1950s UNESCO carried out research into the teaching of different disciplines at higher education institutions all over the world. In this research, social psychology was grouped together with sociology and social anthropology. Claude Lévi-Strauss (2008[1956]), who was deeply involved in this project, posed the question as to what is the common characteristic in research that is classified as social scientific. He answered in arguing that while all social sciences are linked to society and to the improvement of the knowledge of society, they do that in different forms that he called uniqueness, depth and remoteness. The ambition shared by social psychology and sociology, Lévi-Strauss argued, is reaching society at the deep level.

But how does one attain the ‘deep level’? It seems that the deep level can rarely be attained by inductive data collection but, instead, by careful observations of social phenomena: understanding them in their local, historical and political conditions and formulating preliminary theories on the basis of their interdependencies with the social phenomena under study. This is the meaning of Moscovici’s claim that social psychology should be anthropology of modern culture.

4 The impact factor

In discussing ambitions and activities of founding members of the European Association we need to draw attention to another historical fact. And Sandra Schruijer does that by working as a historian: she comments that in considering the status of the European Association today we need to focus on the situation in which the contemporary generation of social psychologists finds itself, its members voluntarily submitting themselves to the doctrine of impact factors. This voluntary submission is indeed striking, though not surprising.

It is striking that many social psychologists are ready to accept an arbitrary and bureaucratic decision of impact factors as a criterion of scientific success. Although the European Journal may not be among high-fliers with respect to its impact factor, it clearly aspires to become one. While in the instructions for authors in the EJSP one can read invitations for broadly defined empirical and theoretical studies, in reality it appears that it is the referees who impose a rigid control and carefully censor what kinds of paper are acceptable. Terms that cannot be operationalized in a trivial and easily reproducible way, e.g. ‘intersubjectivity’, are not acceptable (for reasons of confidence I cannot quote specific cases). The journal rarely publishes papers involving single case studies that do not fit into the inductive paradigm. Methods of proof, rather than methods of discovery, determine research in our discipline despite the fact that the method of induction was rejected by top scientists like Einstein and Medawar, among others. Instead, top scientists’ thinking and their discoveries are underlaid by intuition and imagination. For example, Charles Sanders Peirce, in his ‘Scientific Imagination’, argues that when a researcher passionately desires to know the truth, ‘his first effort will be to imagine what that truth can be’ (Peirce, 1931–58: I, 46). In contrast, the very idea of impact factors precludes innovation that is ‘risky’ and enforces researchers ‘to follow the crowd’ and to conform to the established ideas, however trivial they may be.

Yet as I have already indicated above, it is not surprising. In his book on the Philosophy of History, Hegel (2007[1899]) reminded us that humans do not learn from mistakes made in the past and that many events are repetitions of previous blunders. Compromises and silences of scientists due to the fear of persecution and punishment, whether by the Church, the state or the party, have persisted over centuries and have often determined what was and what was not acceptable as ‘science’. These unfortunate events have been well described by historians. In our own subject, during the Cold War when the European Association of Social Psychology was created, western social psychologists had to retain ideological neutrality in order to maintain at least some contact with East-European social scientists (Doise, in press). Willem Doise refers to the Russian social psychologist Galina Andrejeva who explained that in the 1960s and 1970s it was safer for political reasons for social psychology to attach itself to psychology rather than sociology:

… here the danger of ‘ideological mistakes’ was weaker and the status of psychology in society as a whole became rather secure. … The first laboratories and departments were created in the institutes of psychology and consequently psychological social psychology was the first to be supported. (Doise: in press,, quoting from Andreeva, 2001: 7–8)

Today, too, it is safer for young researchers to follow bureaucratic requirements rather than their own social scientific interests because according to an internet discussion ‘the current machinery of science policy with its success measures prefers universalistic approaches … [that] attract more readers, references, funds and impacts in terms of currently valid achievement standards’ (see below). In view of these issues, we cannot take for granted any intellectual courage!

5 Social psychology in a vacuum

Considering these issues, let us ask, again, with Sandra Schrujier: what is ‘European’ in European social psychology? Since it is the experimental method based on induction and on established statistical techniques that determines what is acceptable for publication in the European journal, we must conclude that it is not European in terms of the ambitions and activities of its founders. Is it ‘Americanized’? Or are American journals Europeanized? Or are we all globalized? In fact, it would be hardly possible to answer such questions. There appear to be no epistemological differences among journals that publish experimental social psychological studies and no differences among topics that experimental social psychologists follow across different countries and continents. Journals follow the same route, although they may differ in their impact factors. We may even ask: To whom does social psychology in a vacuum speak today, whether it is called American, European, international, or global? How many historians, anthropologists, or sociologists refer to findings of social psychologists, say, on the ‘contact hypothesis’, ‘prejudice’, or ‘identity’? Historians whose work includes the study of prejudice, generate their own concepts rather than refer to studies that, supposedly, can be repeated all over the world but that, hardly ever, make theoretical or empirical contributions leading to diminishing prejudice as a socio-ethical, historical and political phenomenon. Above all, we must conclude that social psychology is a lonely discipline that speaks only to itself.

There are many members of the European Association who ask the same question as Sandra Schruijer does. In June 2011 Willem Doise initiated an important internet discussion about the current status of the European Association by publicizing his letter to the president of EASP arguing that the Association ‘is no longer a European Association as was intended by its founders and reflected by the admission procedures until now according to our Standing Orders and Articles’. Doise’s initiative has led to an extensive internet exchange of ideas and expressions of disappointment with the narrowness of the European Association. The discontented members proposed changes of the Association’s policies in order to broaden the discipline and adopt multifaceted approaches. The draft of the petition was circulated among some members of the Association and originally it was signed on the internet by over 70 members. One of the members from a past post-communist country expressed his views as follows:

We, European social psychologists, are working in a context where individualistic approaches have become predominant. The current machinery of science policy with its success measures prefers universalistic approaches as opposed to culture-, society- or history- focused relativistic research. Universalistic research attracts more readers, references, funds and impacts in terms of currently valid achievement standards. … Changes in science are slow processes. … We have to work for these changes … the acceptance of the plurality of approaches within social psychology and the intellectually fertilizing dialogue between different orientations. I hope that many of us will be in Stockholm¹ and will voice the ideas which came up in the discussion started by Willem. In this spirit, I can support the petition.

Footnotes

Notes

References

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