Social and Personality Psychology Compass 9/8 (2015): 394–405, 10.1111/spc3.

12187

Rethinking the Crisis in Social Psychology: A Dialectical

Perspective
Manolis Dafermos*
University of Crete

Abstract
This paper examines the crisis in social psychology as a multifaceted process. The epistemological, theoretical,
and methodological tensions and controversies that arise in the extensive, ref lexive debate on the crisis in
social psychology are considered in their interconnections with psychological practice. The paper argues that
despite the dominant tendency to return to “business as usual”, the increasing disunity and fragmentation of
social psychology only indicate that its crisis has deepened. The paper offers a critical account of the main
strategies for the resolution of the crisis in social psychology and suggests a dialectical perspective as a tool
for a critical ref lection on important theoretical and methodological issues of psychology as a discipline
(the relationship between theory and practice, relationship between individual and society, empiricism, etc.)

Introduction
During the late 1960s and 1970s, it was reported that social psychology was in the middle of a
crisis. Multiple descriptions of the crisis in social psychology emerged, and many heterogeneous
crisis resolution strategies were developed (Armistead, 1974; Brannigan, 2004; Elms, 1975;
Moghaddam, 1987; Silverman, 1977). In the 1980s, the debate on the crisis in social psychology
was limited, and many scholars felt that the crisis was over (Kim, 1999). The question arises
whether this facile deduction regarding the disappearance of the crisis of social psychology
corresponds to the actual state of affairs. In contrast with the statement of the disappearance of
the crisis in social psychology, I endorse Pancer’s idea that “…many of the issues that contributed
to the crisis remain unresolved” (Pancer, 1997, p. 151).
In the present paper, firstly, an attempt will be made to distinguish the significant dimensions
of the crisis in social psychology in their mutual interconnection. Secondly, the paper examines
several strategies that have been developed for the resolution of the crisis in social psychology.
Thirdly, it is argued that a dialectical perspective provides a framework for a critical ref lection
on many crucial issues that arise within the context of the debate over crisis in social psychology.
From the Diagnosis to the Substance of Crisis
In the late 1960s to early 1970s, many social psychologists seemed to experience a sense of a crisis
in their discipline. It was reported that they “lost not only their enthusiasm but also their sense of
direction and their faith in the discipline’s future” (Elms, 1975, p.967). It is difficult to find a
clear and comprehensive definition of the concept of the crisis in social psychology. Different
articulations of a crisis could be found, and different authors have used the concept of crisis in
different ways.
The crisis in social psychology is not an isolated event but should be investigated as an essential
dimension of the process of the emergence and formation of social psychology as a domain
developing on the borders between psychology and other sciences. The historical roots of the
crisis in social psychology could be found in the period of its emergence as a distinct field of

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empirical research. The shift from philosophical speculation to empirical research has been char-
acterized as a “revolt against armchair methods of the social philosophy” (Cartwright, 1979, p.83).
The claims that social psychology was becoming a strict experimental science were based on
the positivist philosophy of science. Αttempting to break away from metaphysical speculation,
social psychology was trapped in the nets of the metaphysics of positivism with its universalistic
and naturalistic claims. Social psychology’s commitment to a positivistic model of science with
its abstract and transhistorical truths contributed to the unfolding crisis (Minton, 1984).
It is worth mentioning that Wundt’s project of Völkerpsychologie has been excluded from the
early history of social psychology (Good, 2000), because it was incompatible with the behaviorist
social psychology that became dominant in the USA during the first decade of the 20th century.
The split between Wundt’s ‘physiologischen Psychologie’ as a part of Naturwissenschaften and his
‘Völkerpsychologie’ as part of Geisteswissenschaften includes in a latent form the possibility of a
crisis in the theoretical foundations of psychology as a science.
In the 1930s, social psychology was established as a legitimate field of research. Social
psychology emerged as “the science which studies the behavior of the individual in so far as
his behavior stimulates other individuals, or is itself a reaction to their behavior” (Allport,
1924, p.12) and ref lects “distinctively American ideological commitments to pragmatism and
individualism” (Greenwood, 2004, p.15).
A few decades later, it became clear that one of the causes of the crisis of social psychology
is connected to its individualist-oriented research and theorizing and the disappearance of
the social. “The inability to articulate the social in social psychology has meant that the
discipline has been all psychology, all of the time” (Stam, 2006, p. 589). It can be considered
as a paradox that social psychology as a discipline encounters difficulties in conceptualizing
the social.
Mainstream psychology in the USA was characterized as empirical, mechanistic, quantitative,
nomothetic, analytic, and operational (Bills, 1938). The migration of prominent German psychologists
Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, Koffka, and especially Kurt Lewin played a significant role
in shaping the theoretical perspectives of many American psychologists, such as Solomon Asch,
Dorwin Cartwright, and Leon Festinger, but it did not change the dominant reductionistic
theoretical and methodological orientation of American social psychology.
After the Second World War, experimental social psychology f lourished, and an extensive
growth of social psychological knowledge was achieved. It was the ‘Golden Age’ of experimental
social psychology. Solomon Asch’s experiments on conformity, Stanley Milgram’s obedience
studies, Leon Festinger’s studies on social communication, and many other empirical studies
expanded the field and inspired enthusiasm in many social psychologists for the future of their
discipline.
However, in the late 1960s to early 1970s, many social psychologists expressed a growing
dissatisfaction with the state of their discipline (House, 1977). A sense of ‘insecurity’ and ‘loss
of direction’ became apparent (Sherif, 1977). Different scholars focused on different aspects
of the crisis. “Whether they are experiencing an identity crisis, a paradigmatic crisis, or a crisis
of confidence, most seem agreed that a crisis is at hand” (Elms, 1975, pp. 167–168). Social
psychology has been criticized for narrow individualism and disappearance of the social
(Greenwood, 2004) and reductionism (Sherif & Sherif, 1969) and accepting a non-historical
approach (Armistead, 1974; Gergen, 1973). Other scholars argue that social psychology is
culture blind (Berry, 1978), artificial (Moscovici, 1972), trivial (Ring, 1967), and irrelevant
for understanding of social problems (Smith, 1973). Sherif turned his attention to “the
discrepancy or gap between the huge quantity of output in chaff versus only a small
worth-preserving product of substance” (Sherif, 1977, p.372.). Social psychology has been
also criticized for its fragmentation and lack of unity (Katz, 1967).

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396 Rethinking the Crisis in Social Psychology

The crisis in social psychology may be considered as a multifaceted process involving, at least,
three interconnected aspects. The first refers to the crisis of the dominant experimental methodology
of social psychological research (Brannigan, 2004). The second aspect includes the crisis within
the epistemological and theoretical foundation of social psychology (usually it has been defined as a
‘crisis of paradigms’) (Kim, 1999; Parker, 1989). The third aspect has been defined as a ‘crisis
of relevance’ (Elms, 1975; Faye, 2012).
Social psychology was established as the experimental study of the social behavior of human
organisms. Silverman (1977) explains the failure of social psychology to offer a direction as a
result of the narrow vision that complex social phenomena can be fruitfully studied by applying
experimental methods. Experimentation has been presented as the primary method for
distinguishing psychological research from philosophical speculation. It has been dubbed the
“queen of methods” (Hendick, 1977).
Laboratory experiments in social psychology have been criticized for their artificiality and
decontextualization (Argyle, 1973; Babbie, 1975). From this perspective, the famous
experiments in social psychology (such as Milgram’s experimental study of ‘destructive
obedience’ or Asch’s conformity experiments) are not sufficient for understanding the complex
social phenomena such as authoritarian personality, conformity, and fascism.
“Most social psychological research focuses on minute segments of ongoing processes.... We
have little theory dealing with the interrelation of events over extended periods of time” (Gergen,
1973, p. 319). Focusing mainly on separated, decontextualized segments, the dominant social
psychological research has failed to explore ongoing social–historical processes.
Moral and methodological concerns were raised about conducting experimental
research with human subjects and especially about the use of deception as a research
technique (Tuffin, 2005). Rosenthal’s studies highlighted the inf luence of experimenter
expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies on research results (Rosenthal, 1966; Rosenthal
& Jacobson, 1968).
The debate focusing on the limitations of the dominant experimental methodology led
to the search for the cause of the crisis in the theoretical and epistemological foundations of
social psychology. The cause of the crisis within the discipline “can be identified as the
inappropriate adoption and myopic emulation of the natural sciences approach” (Kim,
1999, p.2).
Many different theories such as cognitive dissonance theory, social learning theory, the risky
shift paradigm, and social identity theory have been developed in various domains of social
psychology. However, the accumulation of many isolated ‘miniature theories’ and a lack of
integrative theories capable of capturing the complexity of social reality makes it hard to
understand the scope of social psychology (Back, 1963; Faye, 2012). Katz (1967, p. 341) focused
his attention on “the continuing and growing fragmentation of the discipline”.
Important questions have arisen about the nature of the crisis in social psychology: is it a crisis
of a sub-discipline or a disciplinary crisis of psychology, which has been reproduced in its
concrete branches? To what extent is the crisis in social psychology connected to the crisis in
the social sciences field? The crisis in social psychology is only a link in the chain of multiple
crises in diverse fields of psychology after 1945, such as clinical psychology (Albee, 1970),
developmental psychology (Wolwill, 1973), experimental psychology (Palermo, 1971), and
theoretical psychology (Teo, 2005). Moreover, the emergence of a variety of new approaches
in social theory and social research and the growing dissatisfaction with the dominant
methodologies and theories have been presented as evidence of a crisis of social theory (Kellner,
1990). In 1970, Gouldner (1970) offered a critical account on the crisis of dominant positivist
sociology (especially the structural-functionalist theories) and its inability to offer sufficient
consideration for social change.

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 Rethinking the Crisis in Social Psychology 397

Social psychology has been developed at the disciplinary boundaries between psychology and
other sciences (sociology, anthropology, neurosciences, etc.). Questions regarding its identity
and definition and the crossing of disciplinary boundaries cause dramatic tensions.
Q: What busy and productive field of modern psychology has no clear-cut identity and not even a
generally accepted definition?
A: Social psychology. It is less a field than a no man’s land between psychology and sociology,
overlapping each and also impinging on anthropology, criminology, several other social sciences,
and neuroscience (Hunt, 2007, p.459).

In particular, the question regarding disciplinary identity, boundaries, and interface between
psychology and sociology provokes heated debates and dramatic tensions. The crisis in social
psychology has been presented as resulting from the division of the field into three increasingly
isolated domains with a distinctive methodological orientation: (i) psychological social
psychology based on laboratory experiment; (ii) symbolic interactionism, using naturalistic
observations; and (iii) psychological sociology oriented towards the analysis of relations between
macro-social structures and individual psychology (House, 1977). The differentiation between
and within disciplines turns into a fragmentation of knowledge and isolation of different
ontological, methodological, and epistemological domains. However, the boundaries between
and within disciplines are not fixed. They are f lexible, and hence, they f luctuate as time passes
and new developments ensue. Moreover, this kind of boundary work is not a neutral or purely
cognitive endeavor, because the professional authority is involved in processes of restriction,
protection, and expansion of disciplinary autonomy. Traditional academic division of labor
which separates boundaries established between disciplines and sub-disciplines is not irrelevant
to multiple crises in social sciences including the crisis of social psychology.
Several scholars focus mainly on the epistemological, theoretical causes of the crisis in
social psychology. The crisis in social psychology “was of epistemology, not just of social
confidence”, and the epistemological problems remain disputed even into the early part
of the 21st century (Augoustinos,Walker, & Donaghue, 2006, p.7). During the 1960s and
1970s, social psychology has confronted challenging underlying issues that emerged in the
broader field of humanities and social sciences. “Social psychology thus wrestles with a va-
riety of dualisms that have dominated the intellectual life of the human sciences: mind/body,
individual/society, subject/object, organism/environment, knowledge/action, fact/value”
(Good, 2000, p.389). More generally, the crisis in psychology has been presented as
a result of fundamental philosophical issues generating the dissolution of the discipline
(Goertzen, 2008).
Other scholars emphasize predominantly the ‘crisis of relevance’ in social psychology. The
concept of ‘crisis of relevance’ refers to the social responsiveness of social psychology. Many
people felt dissatisfaction with social psychology in relation to their own lives and the social
world around them (Armistead, 1974). Social psychology had no ready answers to the social
questions of that time: the rebelliousness of American youth, protest against the Vietnam
War, social movements such as Black Consciousness, Women’s Movement, etc. (Hunt,
2007). The crisis in social psychology might be considered as part of the wider context of crises
within the American society (Faye, 2012).
From my perspective, the ‘crisis of relevance’ of social psychology may be defined more
broadly in terms of a crisis of practice. The substance of the crisis in social psychology can be found
in psychological practice and its relation to broader social practice. The crisis is not only an internal
state of social psychology as a branch, but its roots are embedded in disciplinary and social practice
(Dafermos, 2014).

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398 Rethinking the Crisis in Social Psychology

Danziger (1996) emphasizes the importance of historical and social contextualization of

psychological practice and its close relations to a broad spectrum of wider social practice. From
this perspective, the distinction between nomothetic and ideographic approaches cannot be
analyzed as a purely theoretical or philosophical question. The claims to establish universal
generalizations have a close relation to the dominance of certain investigative and institutional
practices. “....the practice of psychology has become increasingly identified with the
experimental method” (Gergen, 1982, p.126). The existence of an extensive infrastructure to
support experimental research is reported as one of the reasons for the experimental orientation
of American social psychology (Moghaddam, 1987). Moreover, the dominance of reductionism
might be considered as a result of the segmentation and narrow division of academic labour.
The crisis in western social psychology may be explained as an outcome of the rebellion on
the part of developing and developed countries (mainly European countries) against the
predominant U.S. social psychology. It could be said that many European social psychologists
criticized mainstream U.S. social psychology and attempted to evolve alternative approaches
(Moghaddam, 1987). Parker (1989) argues that the cultural context of the ‘paradigm crisis’
includes tensions between American and European social psychology that have been organized
by the distribution of economic power in the world, which is mediated by the relationships
between America and Europe.

Developing Crisis Resolution Strategies

Different strategies for the resolution of the crisis in social psychology have been developed. The
first strategy for the resolution of the crisis in social psychology has been based on the
improvement of the existing theory, methodology, and especially techniques of experimental
research. The ‘social cognition’ movement inspired many social psychologists to apply new
research methods. In the past few years, ‘social neuroscience’ has become very popular.
Moreover, systems theory and ideas of bidirectional relationships have been used to improve
the theoretical and methodological background of experimental research. Advanced techniques
such as computer simulation and multivariate time series designs have been implemented in
experimental research (McGuire, 1973).
In other words, the first strategy for overcoming the crisis in social psychology might be
considered in Lakatosian terms as an attempt to revise auxiliary hypotheses in order to protect
the hard core of experimental research (Lakatos, 1978). Gergen (1996) argues that the
cognitive revolution is a ‘wrong revolution’. As a result of the advent of cognitivism, theory
and research in social psychology became more individual centered and detached the
individual from their social environment (Pancer, 1997). Gergen (1996) notes that “the
experimentalists returned to business as usual; self-ref lection largely disappeared from
the pages of the major journals”.
Moving beyond, experimental social psychology has emerged as an alternative strategy for
resolving the crisis in social psychology. The adherents of the ‘new paradigm’ attempted to
develop a theoretical and methodological framework that takes into account the complexity
of social life. Under the banner of the ‘second cognitive revolution’, the turn to discourse has been
proclaimed as a perspective to overcome the positivist ‘paradigm’ (Harré, 1993). A wide range of
theories and methods of non experimental social psychology have been developed, and
multiple spaces have been opened up. In opposition to behaviorism with its naturalistic,
objectivistic conception of the world, phenomenology emphasizes exploration of human
meaningful experiences (Ashworth & Chung, 2006). Discursive psychology has developed as
an attractive alternative to mainstream experimental social psychology and especially to the
cognitivist reduction of mental life to cognitive and computational processes. Discursive

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psychology focuses on the study of ways people construct both reality and mind through and by
using language in their everyday interactions (Potter & Edwards, 2001). Social constructionist
psychology attempts the creation of new forms of cultural life through the development of
new theoretical languages, research practices, and practices of intervention (Gergen, 1996).
Wittgenstein’s later writings on language, Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, Goffman’s
dramaturgical sociology, semiotics, and post-structuralism have been tapped for the theoretical
foundation of the ‘new discursive paradigm’. The ‘discursive turn’ enriched and re-oriented
social psychology through opening up new possibilities for carrying out original research into
traditional and new topics.
Simultaneously, some limitations of the ‘new discursive paradigm’ in social psychology were
revealed. One of these limitations is connected with dealing with people mainly as language-
using beings. In contrast to the naturalistic determinism of traditional social psychology, the
‘new discursive paradigm’ tends to develop a specific kind of linguistic determinism. The
intense focus on language and discourse of the ‘new paradigm’ has been criticized for ignoring
embodiment, materiality, and power relations. Nightingale and Cromby (1999) argue that body
as biological and physiological substrate, materiality as the elemental, physical nature of the world
in which people are embedded and power relationships are not reducible to discourse (Nightingale
& Cromby, 1999). The ‘new discursive paradigm’ in psychology has been accused of
subjectivism, which “strongly and exclusively overlooks social and natural inf luences on
subjectivity” (Ratner, 2008).
The ‘new discursive paradigm’ could not offer a satisfactory solution of many theoretical and
methodological issues such as the subjective–objective dualism in social theory. Moreover, such
trends as qualitative research, discursive psychology have been labeled by Parker (2014, p.25) as
“actually quite old, recycled items”. The rupture between two different perspectives for
overcoming the crisis of social psychology reproduces not only the gap between ‘two camps’
in a fragmented field of psychology but also the theoretical and methodological dualism in
the field of social sciences (Dafermos & Marvakis, 2006; Marvakis, 2013).
Although there has been a rapid expansion in qualitative/cultural studies, “the old paradigm still
reigns” of experimental social psychology still reigns…” (Harré, 2012, p. 316). The claim to over-
come the crisis in social psychology through developing a pure theoretical (or methodological)
model reproduces the “dominant bourgeois conceptions of academic knowledge as in principle
separate from the world and as independent of moral-political activity” (Parker, 1999a, p.74).
Becoming aware of the failure of attempts at reconstructing social psychology (Armistead,
1974) as an academic institution leads some radical psychologists to propose deconstructing
social psychology (Parker & Shotter, 1990). Restricting the focus only to conceptual
problems has been considered as a cause of the failure of theories that claim to revolutionize
psychology as a discipline (Parker, 1989). Bringing theory and practice to promoting social
changes has been presented as a fruitful strategy for deconstructing social psychology. An
alternative understanding of subjectivity, based on a critical approach to both power and ideology
and support for resistance, has been developed. The theoretical framework for deconstructing
social psychology has been formed under the inf luence of Derrida’s post-modernistic ideas on
deconstruction and Foucault’s post-structuralist concepts of relations between power and
discourse (Henriques, Hollway, Urwin, Venn, & Walkerdine, 1998). Inspired by Foucault’s
post-structuralism, Nicolas Rose (1998) developed an understanding of social psychology as a
complex of knowledge and techniques that was linked to democracy as a way of organizing
and legitimating political power. Post-structuralistic theory with its concepts such as ‘the
genealogy of subjectivity’, ‘regimes of truths’, ‘subjectification’, and ‘problematization’ (Rose,
1998) has provided an important insight for a radical critique of disciplinary practices in the field
of psychology and their conceptualization.

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A paradox of this kind of ‘radical’ critique of social psychology consists in using a theoretical
toolbox made by postmodernism that has been conceptualized as “the cultural logic of late cap-
italism” ( Jameson, 1991). In other words, a radical critique of psychology was implemented and
accepted implicitly the conditions of those social forms and subjectivities, which it attempts to
deconstruct. Eagleton (2003) argues that postmodernism has as a material condition shift to a
new form of capitalism

to the ephemeral, decentralized world of technology, consumerism and the culture industry, in which
the service, finance and information industries triumph over traditional manufacture, and classical class
politics yield ground to a diffuse range of ‘identity politics’ (Eagleton, 2003, vii).

For Parker (1998), the progressive potential of postmodernism was exhausted and
threatens a radical political agenda. From my perspective, “the queasiness shown by post-
structuralist writers toward dialectics in psychology” (Parker, 1999a, p.63) is one of the
reasons for the failure of post-structuralism and deconstruction theories to cope with the
challenges of both the truculently contradictory social reality and the contradictory nature
of knowledge construction.

A Dialectical Perspective on Crisis in Social Psychology

The concept dialectics has acquired different forms and meanings in various historical contexts
(ancient Greek dialectic, Chinese dialectic, Indian negative dialectic, Hegelian dialectic, Marx
dialectic, German negative dialectic, etc.) (Wan-chi Wong, 2006). Different concepts of
dialectic have been distinguished. The first concept refers to dialectics as a form of ontology
of change. In accordance with the second concept, dialectics has been defined as a method of
understanding and conceptualization of the change (Buss, 1979).
It may be said that dialectics is a way of thinking developed in contrast to metaphysical
thinking, which examines objects as “detached, static and unchanging” (Pavlidis, 2010, p.76).
Dialectics as a way of thinking focuses on the study of each concrete object in its mutual
connections with other objects, in its internal contradictions and in the process of its change.
Dialectical method “…regards every historically developed form as being in a f luid state, in
motion…” (Marx, 1982, p.103).
Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, Rubinstein’s activity theory (Payne, 1968),
Holzkamp’s psychology from the standpoint of the subject (Schraube & Osterkamp,
2013), Riegel’s dialectical psychology (Riegel, 1979), and Parker’s (1999a, 1999b) critical
psychology have made valuable contributions to the development of a dialectical framework
in psychology. Challenging equilibrium models of social and psychological systems,
dialectics considers contradictions, conf licts, and crises as the basis for creativity and human
development (Riegel, 1979).
Dialectical thinking in psychology stood in opposition to empiricism, which is based on the
metaphysical way of thinking. Empiricist research focuses on the study of static and separated
elements and their quantitative relationships (Kvale, 1975). At this point, the limitations of
the one-dimensional, analytical research, “analysis into elements” in Vygotsky’s (1987) terms
that prevailed in the field of social psychology, are revealed. As a result of the dominance of
reductionism and elementarism, the characteristics of the whole in its historical development
are lost.
During ‘its short history’, social psychology has developed at the level of ‘understanding’
(Verstand) rather than ‘reason’ (Vernuft) in terms of German classical philosophy. For Kant
and Hegel, the ‘understanding’ (Verstand) has a predominantly analytical function, whereas

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‘reason’ (Vernuft) develops mainly in a synthetic way (Limnatis, 2008). Understanding

(Verstand) focuses on the study of an object in isolation from other objects and offers an analysis
of its separated elements. Reason (Vernuft) focuses on synthetic study of a complex whole in its
interconnections with other objects in the process of its historical development. Understanding
offers an abstract way of thinking based on an analysis of fixed definitions, whereas reason offers a
concrete way of thinking based on a system of interrelated definitions. In the Marxist perspective,
reason as a concrete, dialectical way of thinking is closely bound up with social transformative
practice (Pavlidis, 2010; Vazjulin, 1985).
Reductionism and elementarism might be considered as consequences of the dominance of
‘understanding’ (Verstand) as a way of thinking in social psychological research. A static view of
society and the lack of historical perspective (Armistead, 1974) became a dominant tendency in
social psychology. The sense of crisis in social psychology appeared when the need for the
transition from ‘understanding’ (Verstand) to ‘reason’ (Vernuft) began to be disclosed. Social
psychology has been confronted with so many tensions, antinomies, and binary divisions
(individual versus social, social versus biological, idiographic versus nomothetic, etc.) that it is
actually hard to cope with them on the basis of an individualistic and reductionistic theoretical
framework. Multiple binary divisions are not simple rhetorical devices or linguistic constructions
as has been presented in the constructionist conceptualization of the crisis in social psychology
(Morgan, 1996). The crisis in social psychology is not reducible to a ‘linguistic game’, but it is
linked to real tensions and antinomies of ‘understanding’ (Verstand) as a one-dimensional,
analytical way of conceptualizing in psychology.
In their review of dialogical approaches in the field of critical psychology, Kousholt and
Thomsen distinguish three characteristics of dialectics. The first characteristic of dialectics is con-
nected with the mutual constitution between subject and society (Kousholt & Thomsen, 2013).

Though it attempts to develop new ways of thinking about social processes between individuals, the de-
bate is circumscribed by the terms of reference of traditional psychology, and as such cannot move beyond
traditional answers to how to transcend individual-society dualism (Henriques et al., 1998, p.12).

Focusing on the internal connection between individual and society (Buss, 1979), dialectics
offers a creative insight for going beyond the gap between society and individual that dominates
in traditional psychology.
The second characteristic of dialectics is associated with the ref lection on the relation
between reproduction and transformation. From a dialectical perspective, research is presented
simultaneously as an act of reproduction and transformation that takes place alongside the
practice (Kousholt & Thomsen, 2013). Dialectically oriented researchers intend to bridge the
gap between theory and practice. For example, practice research emerged as an attempt to
develop a dialectical relation between theory and practice (Nissen, 2012).
Vygotsky in his famous book “The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology: A Meth-
odological Investigation” argued that the driving force of crisis in psychology could been found in
“…the development of applied psychology as a whole” (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 305). Vygotsky argued that

Practice pervades the deepest foundations of the scientific operation and reforms it from beginning to
end. Practice sets the task and serves as the supreme judge of theory, as its truth criterion. It dictates how
to construct the concepts and how to formulate the laws. (Vygotsky, 1997, pp. 305–306)

The third characteristic of the concept of dialectics is connected with the study of internal
conf licts (Kousholt & Thomsen, 2013) and internal contradictions (Dreier & Kvale, 1984) of a

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402 Rethinking the Crisis in Social Psychology

concrete object. Dialectics involves the fundamental assumption that the internal contradictions
and conf licts of a concrete object is the engine of its change and development.
The exclusion of the concept of conf lict from the analysis (Parker, 1989) impoverishes the
conceptual equipment of social psychology and makes us unable to understand both the
contradictory nature of social reality and contradictions that emerged in the process of its inves-
tigation. The lack of dialectical thinking in social psychology has been ref lected in its resistance
to conceptualizing and tackling with evolving controversies, antinomies, contradictions, and crises
that emerged in its own field. Moreover, dialectical thinking is important for conceptualization of
complex and contradictory social reality.

Conclusion
The extended, ref lexive debates on the crisis in social psychology provide the opportunity
to pose crucial epistemological, methodological, ethical, and political questions. In the
context of these ongoing debates, new theories, methodologies, and methods have been
developed. Simultaneously, the crisis’s discussions contribute to the finding of increasing
disunity of social psychology as a branch and the mismatch between its theory
(and methodology) and social practice. The epistemological and ethical tensions in the
field of social psychology are not irrelevant to the dominance of certain investigative
and institutional practices.
The dominant strategies that have been developed for overcoming the crisis in social
psychology only illustrate that its crisis continues and deepens. The failure to tackle the crisis
in social psychology leads many mainstream social psychologists to distract their attention from
its detection and systematic analysis. The dominant response to the crisis in social psychology
tends to legitimize returning to ‘businesses as usual’ (Faye, 2012).
The permanent crisis in psychology as a discipline expresses more generally a crisis of the
constitution and reproduction of social knowledge and its relation to social practice. The
debate on the crisis in social psychology might become part of a broader frame of reference
for the investigation of the theory and methodology of social sciences and its connections
with social practice.
Dialectics offers a unique perspective for inquiry into complex and contradictory social
reality. Additionally, merging critical theorizing with transformative social practice dialectics
provides a creative insight for understanding and breaking through the crisis in social psychology
in the broader context of the reconstruction/deconstruction of social sciences.

Short Biography

Manolis Dafermos is an associate professor in epistemology of psychology at the Department

of Psychology at the University of Crete. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the
Lomonosov Moscow State University. His interests include cultural historical psychology,
critical psychology, the history of psychology, and methodological and epistemological
issues in the social sciences. He has authored or co-authored papers in these areas for Theory
& Psychology, European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counseling, Encyclopedia of Critical
Psychology, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, Forum Kritische Psychologie,
Oxford Handbook of Exercise Psychology, etc. He is a member of the Editorial Board of journals
Dialogical Pedagogy and Teoría y Crítica de la Psicología. He has served as a section editor for the
journal Outlines: Critical Practice Studies. He has been a guest editor of two special issues of the
journal Annual Review of Critical Psychology.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 9/8 (2015): 394–405, 10.1111/spc3.12187
 Rethinking the Crisis in Social Psychology 403

Note

* Correspondence: Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Gallos University Campus, Rethymno, GR 74100,
Greece. Email: [email protected]

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