1st Edition

Deconstructing Social Psychology

Edited By Ian Parker, John Shotter Copyright 1990
    262 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    266 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    Since the early 1970s, social psychology has been in crisis. At the time Reconstructing Social Psychology (Armistead) provided a critical review of theories and assumptions in the discipline. Originally published in 1990, this title not only updates that review but illustrates the ways in which assumptions had changed at the time. The crisis is no longer seen as one which can be resolved within social psychology itself, but rather as one more deeply rooted in modern society.

    The contributors look at the issues raised by deconstruction in the other human sciences, as well as investigating the claims made by social psychology as a discipline. They examine the rhetoric and texts of social psychology, analysing how the texts which hold the discipline together obtain their power. The arguments include the political implications of deconstructive ideas, focusing on particular issues such as research, therapy and feminism.

    Deconstructing Social Psychology presents a strong selection of new critical writing in social psychology. It will still be a useful text for students of psychology, social science, and sociology, and for those working in the area of language.

    List of contributors.  Ian Parker and John Shotter Introduction  Part 1: Texts and Rhetoric  1. Peter Stringer Prefacing Social Psychology: A Textbook Example  2. Corinne Squire Crisis What Crisis? Discourses and Narratives of the ‘Social’ in Social Psychology  3. Michael Billig Rhetoric of Social Psychology  4. Celia Kitzinger The Rhetoric of Pseudoscience  5. Antony Easthope ‘I Gotta Use Words when I Talk to You’: Deconstructing the Theory of Communication  Part 2: Power and Science  6. Ian Parker The Abstraction and Representation of Social Psychology  7. Nikolas Rose Psychology as a ‘Social Science’  8. Edward E. Sampson Social Psychology and Social Control  9. John Bowers All Hail the Great Abstraction: Star Wars and the Politics of Cognitive Psychology  10. Kum-Kum Bhavnani What’s Power Got to Do With It?  Part 3: Subjectivity and Individuality  11. John Shotter Social Individuality Versus Possessive Individualism: The Sounds of Silence  12. Mike Michael Intergroup Theory and Deconstruction  13. David Pilgrim Researching Psychotherapy in Britain: The Limits of a Psychological Approach  14. Janet Sayers Psychoanalytic Feminism: Deconstructing Power in Theory and Therapy  15. Erica Burman Differing with Deconstruction: A Feminist Critique.  References.  Index.

    Biography

    Ian Parker