Résultat de la recherche
Social Psychology of and for World-Making
Academic Abstract Social psychology’s disconnect from the vital and urgent questions of people’s lived experiences reveals limitations in the current paradigm. We draw on a related perspective in social psychology1—the sociocultural approach—and argue how this perspective can be elaborated to consider not only social psychology as a historical science but also social psychology of and for world-making. This conceptualization can make sense of key theoretical and methodological challenges faced by contemporary social psychology. As such, we describe the ontology, epistemology, ethics, and methods of social psychology of and for world-making. We illustrate our framework with concrete examples from social psychology. We argue that reconceptualizing social psychology in terms of world-making can make it more humble yet also more relevant, reconnecting it with the pressing issues of our time. Public Abstract We propose that social psychology should focus on “world-making” in two senses. First, people are future-oriented and often are guided more by what could be than what is. Second, social psychology can contribute to this future orientation by supporting people’s world-making and also critically reflecting on the role of social psychological research in world-making. We unpack the philosophical assumptions, methodological procedures, and ethical considerations that underpin a social psychology of and for world-making. Social psychological research, whether it is intended or not, contributes to the societies and cultures in which we live, and thus it cannot be a passive bystander of world-making. By embracing social psychology of and for world-making and facing up to the contemporary societal challenges upon which our collective future depends will make social psychology more humble but also more relevant.
Utopias and world-making: Time, transformation and the collective imagination
Utopias have a long and contested history of steering social change; bringing the imagined ideal collective future into reality has been seen as both a noble endeavour and the herald of totalitarian regimes and political violence. This chapter will investigate this tension in two parts: the first will explore the distinctly human future-oriented psychology and argue that imagination is central to human thinking and social organisation. The second part will discuss the role of utopias in motivating and guiding social change. We will explore the dangers of utopianism and conclude that while we need utopian visions to chart the shared path forward, it is essential that such visions are not hegemonic, but a polyphonic and ever-evolving collective imagination of the future.
Imagination and social movements
Whether explicitly mentioned or not, imagination plays a key role in social movements. People’s dissatisfaction with what is, their imagining of how things once were better, or of how things may become, often supports social movements. Social movements can, in turn, bring about new imaginations for people. After defining the notion of imagination and social movements, drawing on recent research, we review the literature along three main axes: the role of temporality in the relation between social movements and imagination; the relation between collective identities, social movement and imagination; and the resources that support imagination and social movements. We conclude by highlighting further dimensions to analyse the dynamics of imagination, which may open new ways to analyse the trajectories of social movements.
Difficult differences: A socio-cultural analysis of how diversity can nable and inhibit creativity
The relationship between diversity and creativity can be seen as paradoxical. A diversity of perspectives should be advantageous for collaborative creativity, yet its benefits are often offset by adverse social processes. One suggestion for overcoming these negative effects is perspective taking. We compared four dyads with low scores on trait perspective taking with four dyads who were high on trait perspective taking on a brainstorming task followed by reconstructive interviews. Trait-based perspective taking was strongly associated with greater creativity. However, contrary with expectation, interactional perspective taking behaviors (including questioning, signaling understanding, repairing) were associated with lesser creativity. The dyads that generated the fewest ideas were most likely to get stuck within ideational domains, struggling to understand one-another, having to elaborate and justify their ideas more. In contrast, the dyads that generated many ideas were more likely to recognize each other’s ideas as valuable without extensive justification or negotiation. We suggest that perspective taking is crucially important for mediating diversity in the generation of new ideas not only because it enables understanding the perspective of the other, but because it entails an atmosphere of tolerance, playfulness, and mutual recognition.
Difficult differences: a socio-cultural analysis of how diversity can enable and inhibit creativity
The relationship between diversity and creativity can be seen as paradoxical. A diversity of perspectives should be advantageous for collaborative creativity, yet its benefits are often offset by adverse social processes. One suggestion for overcoming these negative effects is perspective taking. We compared four dyads with low scores on trait perspective taking with four dyads who were high on trait perspective taking on a brainstorming task followed by reconstructive interviews. Trait‐based perspective taking was strongly associated with greater creativity. However, contrary with expectation, interactional perspective taking behaviors (including questioning, signaling understanding, repairing) were associated with lesser creativity. The dyads that generated the fewest ideas were most likely to get stuck within ideational domains, struggling to understand one‐another, having to elaborate and justify their ideas more. In contrast, the dyads that generated many ideas were more likely to recognize each other's ideas as valuable without extensive justification or negotiation. We suggest that perspective taking is crucially important for mediating diversity in the generation of new ideas not only because it enables understanding the perspective of the other, but because it entails an atmosphere of tolerance, playfulness, and mutual recognition.