Explanation and Experiment in Social Psychological Science: Realism and the Social Constitution of Action

276 Pages·1989·14.49 MB·English

by  John D. Greenwood (auth.)

Explanation and Experiment
in Social Psychological Science
John D. Greenwood
Explanation and Experiment
in Social Psychological Science
Realism and the
Social Constitution of Action
Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg
London Paris Tokyo
John D. Greenwood
Department of Philosophy
City College
City University of New York
New York, NY 10031
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greenwood, John D.
Explanation and experiment in social psychological science :
realism and the social constitution of action / John D. Greenwood.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN-13:978-1-4613-8803-6 (alk. paper)
1. Social psychology-Methodology. I. Title.
HM251.G7523 1989
302.01 '8-dcl9 88-37924
Printed on acid-free paper.
©1989 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989
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9 8 765 432 1
ISBN-13:978-1-46l3-8803-6 e-ISBN-13:978-1-46l3-8801-2
DOl: 1O.1007/978-1-46l3-8801-2
For my mother and father
In loving memory
Preface
This book is about explanation and experiment in a science of human action. It
aims to provide a philosophy of social psychological science that both embodies
sound principles of scientific reasoning and is sensitive to the social psychological
dimensions of human action. The guiding principle of this book is the belief that
the logical forms of causal explanation and experimental evaluation can be ef
fectively employed in the scientific analysis of meaningful human action.
According to most accounts, social psychological science has been in a more
or less constant state of crisis for the past decades, having been subject to a host
of criticisms on moral, political, methodological, and philosophical grounds.
Many of these critiques have been directed against the still dominant conception
of social psychological enquiry as a causal and objective scientific discipline that
is closely analogous to (if not to be identified as a branch ot) the natural sciences.
Thus, many of the most vigorous debates have concerned the nature of explanation
and the utility of experimentation in a social psychological discipline.
Most psychologists maintain that their discipline is based upon principles of
scientific reasoning. III fact, it has always been based upon a particular philo
sophical account of scientific reasoning that may be characterized as scientific
empiricism. According to this account of science, causal explanation consists of
the deduction of descriptions of events from "laws" that describe empirical reg
ularities, which are confrrmed by observed instances of such regularities. Theories
serve to integrate and systematize such descriptions of observable regUlarity.
Standard accounts of social psychological science based upon these philosophical
principles may be characterized as scientific psychology, since this title seems
to have been commandeered by those who profess that the goal of social psy
chological science is the explanation, prediction, and control of human behavior
via the identification of antecedent causal determinants (usually via laboratory
experiments) .
Scientific empiricism has an obvious appeal to those concerned to provide a
scientific account of human action, since it appears to promote objectivity by
its restrictive emphasis upon the observable. The empiricist account of science
has itself been the object of continuous criticism for the past half century. In
particular, the traditional empiricist distinction between the observable and the
viii Preface
theoretical has been dismissed as epistemologically naive. It has been argued
that all observations are "theory-informed," and that the notion of a neutral
empirical base for the evaluation of scientific theories is an intellectual fiction.
Naturally enough, practicing psychologists have been disinclined to accept the
implications of this relativist account of science, for this position is often inter
preted (with some justification) as a denial of objectivity rather than an altemative
conceptual framework for a science of human action.
Some contemporary criticisms of scientific psychology have been drawn from
this relativist tradition in the philosophy of science. More fundamental criticisms
question the very idea of a causal science of human action. This critical position
may be characterized as hermeneutical psychology, since most commentators
who object to a putatively scientific analysis stress the meaningful nature of
human action. This emphasis on the meaning of human action has led some
hermeneutical theorists to deny that explanations of human action are causal
explanations, and others to deny the objectivity of action identification. In con
sequence, most hermeneutical psychologists deny the appropriateness of exper
imental studies in a social psychological discipline.
Over the years there has been no shortage of alternative meta-theories and
"paradigms" that have promised to resolve the crisis, such as humanist psy
chology, hermeneutical-interpretative psychology, dialectics, sociorationalism,
and social constructionism. Yet these have had litlle significant impact upon
social psychological science. No doubt this is partly due to to ingrained com
mitments to scientific empiricism. However, it is no doubt also due to the justified
belief among practitioners that to adopt the principles of such altemative paradigms
would be to abandon a causal and experimental science. It would be to effectively
abandon social psychological science. For most of the alternative paradigms are
not alternative scientific psychologies. They promote altogether different forms
of intellectual enquiry. In this respect the central crisis in social psychological
science is a philosophical crisis concerning the identity of the discipline.
Most of these debates about the nature of social psychological science are
vitiated by the uncritical adoption of the scientific empiricist account of science.
The empiricist account is hopelessly inadequate as an account of causal expla
nation in science. Since it is (historically and conceptually) based upon the phe
nomenalist idealism of classical empiricism, it effectively denies the possibility
of causal explanation. Consequently, the empiricist account cannot support the
logic of scientific practice. The attempt to accommodate experimentation to this
account distorts the logic of experimentation.
Most of the arguments of the scientific psychologist are vitiated because sci
entific psychology is not based upon the practice of causal and experimental
sciences but upon an inadequate empiricist account. Most of the arguments of
the hermeneutical psychologist based upon the meaningful nature of human action
are vitiated for the same reason. The denials of the adequacy or appropriateness
of causal explanations are not based upon contrasts with causal explanation in
natural science but upon empiricist accounts of explanation. In consequence, the
hermeneutical psychologist misconstrues the point and purpose of experimentation
in a causal science.
Preface ix
The most radical form of hermeneutical psychology denies the objectivity of
action identification, via the claim that human actions are socially constructed.
This relativist account is based partly upon the doctrine of the theory informity
of observations and partly upon a correct intuition about the especially intimate
relation between representation and ontology in social psychological science.
Nevertheiess, this extreme position embodies a number of fundamental ontological
and epistemological errors.
Relativism is no alternative to empiricism. In fact it is a species of neo-em
piricism that returns scientific empiricism to its roots in philosophical idealism.
Opposed to these forms of empiricism and idealism is philosophical realism.
This book is a presentation of a realist philosophy for a causal and experimental
science of action. Realism provides a coherent rationale for causal explanatory
and experimental activity in science, and reveals that many contemporary char
acterizations and criticisms of social psychological science are misconceived.
This does not mean, however, that a realist philosophy of natural science can
be uncritically mapped upon the social psychological domain. This would be to
repeat the original empiricist error. A causal and experimental science of action
must respect and accommodate the unique ontological characteristics of human
action. This requires an applied experimental commitment to the meaningful
nature of human action and the possibility of human agency or self-determination.
Human action is meaningful because it is socially constituted. Human behaviors
are constituted as meaningful actions by their social relations, and by participant
agent and collective representations of them. Diverse human behaviors are con
stituted as the same form of action by their social location and intentional direction.
The social constitution of action makes self-determination possible. Causal ex
planations of action in terms of human agency are not precluded by a realist
science of human action, although neither is their accuracy conceptually guar
anteed by realism or the social constitution of action.
The social constitution of action-and the possibility of human agency--does
not preclude an experimental science of human action. However, it does dem
onstrate that much contemporary practice is misconceived. Traditional accounts
of the problems of an experimental social psychological science are firmly com
mitted to the standard empiricist account. Consequently, most experimentalists
simply fail to recognize the most fundamental problems that arise by virtue of
the social relational and representational dimensions of human action. These are
not the traditional (and misconceived) problems about the generalizability of
experimental results. Rather, they are serious doubts about the identity of ex
perimentally produced behaviors. According to a realist philosophy of experi
mentation in social psychological science, the logic of experimental enquiry must
be employed via techniques that ensure that the identity of human action is pre
served in experiments.
A realist philosophy of social psychological science and a social constitutionist
philosophy of action embody no theoretical, moral, or political commitments.
This is how it should be if they are to provide a conceptual framework for a
causal and experimental science of action. A realist philosophy of social psy
chological science does not entail a social constitutionist philosophy of action.
x Preface
Yet they are uniquely consistent, since both preserve objectivity with respect to
the identification and explanation of human action. This must also be the case
if they are to serve as a conceptual framework for social psychological science,
for a social psychological science that does not preserve objectivity is not really
worth preserving.
Acknowledgments
My greatest intellectual debt is to Rom Harre. It is a huge debt that I cannot
even begin to document. Suffice to say that I remain grateful for his inspired
teaching, constructive criticism, and his advice and support over the years. Also
for his personal example which transformed my own moral career. A very con
siderable debt is also owed to Roy Bhaskar, who originally got me interested in
these questions, and awakened me from my own "dogmatic slumbers" about
causality. The influence of both these mentors on the present volume will be
obvious to all who have read their work.
I also owe a special thanks to Nicholas Capaldi and Paul Secord, who read
earlier drafts of the book in manuscript form and provided me with much useful
criticism. Also for their friendship and advice over the years.
A number of other persons who contributed to the development of the arguments
of this volume deserve special mention. Thanks to Chong Kim Chong, Jerry
Ginsburg, James and Diana Herbert, Jarrett Leplin, Cheryl Logan, Richard
McDonough, Peter Manicas, Joe Margolis, Catherine Morris, Glyn Owen, Harry
Purser, Joe Rychlach, Michael Tay, and Cecelia Wee.
Much of the material of this volume was rehearsed in courses on the philosophy
of social and psychological science given at the National University of Singapore
and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I thank the students who
participated in these courses for their very often useful comments and criticisms.
I am also grateful to Walter Salinger, Head of the Psychology Department at
the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, for arranging for me to give a
graduate psychology course entitled "Social Dimensions of Mind, Behavior, and
Method" in the Spring of 1987. The present format of this volume is largely
based on sections of that course.
I have drawn on material previously published in academic journals. I thank
the editors of Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Journal
for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Human Studies, and European Journal of
Social Psychology for their permission to reproduce some of this material.
Thanks to my wife Shelagh, son Robert, and daughter Holly for putting up
with the periods of physical and mental distance during the writing of this volume.
Finally, my greatest debt is to my late mother and father, for their moral
support. This volume is dedicated to their memory.
Contents
Preface ................................................................ vii
Acknowledgments..................................................... xi
Chapter 1 Scientific Empiricism and Scientific Psychology
Philosophy and Psychology ............................. 1
Causality ................................................ 7
Confirmation ............................................ 13
Explanation.............................................. 15
Theory .................................................. 20
Chapter 2 Relativism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Neo-empiricism ......................................... 29
Popper: Falsification .................................... 30
Lakatos: Research of Programs ......................... 32
Kuhn: Paradigms ....................................... 32
Paradigms and Research Programs in Psychology ....... 34
Chapter 3 Realism ................................................. 38
Varieties of Realism..................................... 38
Realism and Agency .................................... 41
Chapter 4 Causal Explanation ...................................... 43
Causality ................................................ 43
Confirmation ............................................ 49
Explanation .............................................. 60
Chapter 5 Theory .................................................. 69
Theory and Observation ................................. 69
Observation and Theory ................................. 90
Antirealism .............................................. 106