Social psychology in a postmodern age: A discipline without a subject |
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Authors: | James J Dowd |
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Institution: | (1) the Department of Sociology, University of Georgia, 30602 Athens, Georgia |
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Abstract: | This article reconsiders the question of the crisis of social psychology. I argue here that there is a crisis in social psychology
but it is not one of a growing separation between the discipline’s psychological and sociological wings. Instead, the crisis
is the result of structural transformation and associated cultural shift. It involves the gradual displacement of an earlier
concept of the strong, autonomous ego by the postmodern production of the imaginary self. The self in the unfolding era of
postmodernism increasingly resembles a composite of commercially produced images rather than a self-directed ego. The displacement
of the self-concept by the self-image produced what has been a vaguely apperceived but, as yet, not adequately conceptualized,
crisis in social psychology. I conclude with an argument on behalf of a personality and social structure approach to social
psychology as the only form of social psychology conceptually able to deal with the real crisis within social psychology,
that is, the erosion of the self. |
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Keywords: | |
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