Toward Unity and Bold Theory: Popperian Suggestions for Two Persistent Problems of Social Psychology

Abstract

Two persistent and interrelated problems confront the emergence of a broad-based, multimethod discipline of social psychology. The first is unity between its contrasting branches--symbolic interactionism, contextual social psychology, and experimental social psychology. The second problem is the general paucity throughout social psychology of bold theory that can be tested and falsified. This chapter briefly considers each of these problems, and ventures several suggestions toward their solution from the perspective of Karl Popper's integrated philosophies of knowledge and science (Ackermann, 1976; Burke, 1983; Currie & Musgrave, 1985; Levinson,1982; Magee, 1973; Miller, 1985; O'Hear, 1980; Popper, 1950, 1959, 1968, 1976). [1]