Societal Psychology: Social Psychology’s contribution to understanding and changing society

1. Societal Psychology:Social Psychology’s contribution to understanding and changing society Saadi Lahlou Institute of Social Psychology London School of Economics and Political Science

2. The problem: “real World” issues Changing a society, an endeavour that goes beyond psychology. Needs understanding (rerum causas cognoscere): • the determinants of individual behaviour • aggregation issues (groups, masses) • organizational issues • culture To practice : innovation, conflict, structuration, decision-making, agency, negotiation.

3. outline 1. Societal Psychology: principles and history (Prof. Gaskell) 2. Homo Socius : « group member by design » 3. WIT: culture as a distributed guidance system.

4. outline 1. Societal Psychology: principles and history (Prof. Gaskell) 2. Homo Socius : « group member by design » 3. WIT: culture as a distributed guidance system.

5. Some (biased) landmarks of Societal Psychology 1943: Lewin (changing food habits) 1947: Simon (administrative behaviour) 1961: Moscovici (diffusion of Psychoanalysis) 1964 : ISP founded at LSE (…) 1975 : Societal Psychology (Himmelweit et al.) … 2011-12: another promotion of ISP trained to change to World

6. Societal psychology 15 props (Himmelweit & Gaskell, 1975) • Human beings need to be studied in a sociocultural context. The individual and the collective cannot be separated ontologically. Societal psychology requires a systems approach. And multilevel (micro/macro) • The ecology of the environment, its objective characteristics, needs to be studied alongside its mediated reality • Maintain a historical perspective. People create social organizations—but it is the social organizations that recast people • Innovation is as much an imperative of the social system as is conformity • Theoretical and methodological pluralism. Cross-fertilization between StP social sciences is indispensable. Including streams of Psychology. • And between basic and applied research. Adopt a wider range of research tools. • Developing conceptual frameworks rather than search for invariant laws • There is no such thing as value-free social research

7. outline 1. Societal Psychology: principles and history (Prof. Gaskell) 2. Homo Socius : « group member by design » 3. WIT: culture as a distributed guidance system.

8. Biological bricks: Homo Socius and Homo Sapiens Humans are Cooperative, Competitive, Communicative, Educable, Instrumented

9. Homo Socius • Small teams (3 men in a boat) • Groups (football) • Families (gathering) • Hords (demonstration) • Nations (obama election)

10. Henri Tajfel’s minimal group experiment (1970, 1971)

11. Solomon Asch’s « conformity » experiment (1951) Control : 1 participant out of 35 gave an incorrect answer Experiment : 75% of participants gave at least one incorrect answer Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs, 70 (Whole no. 416).

12. intra-group differenciation and coordination

13. Stanley Milgram’s « obedience » experiment (1961)

14. The Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo et al., 1972) http://www.prisonexp.org/

15. real world applications Nazi extermination camps Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, Dec. 11, 1961

16. real world applications

17. Humans are socialized Humans are a mix of competition and cooperation > groups, hierarchy Humans communicate, learn, are instrumented > organisations, culture Individuals have membership (role/status) in specific groups/organisations/cultures. They feel and act as group members.

18. Take-away part 1: humans are by design prone to assemble and create social super-organisms individuals tend to: - act as group organs, - behave according to given role - use the environment as storage/ external scaffolding positive : - individual well-being in groups - emulation, motivation - leverage of agency with labour division - cumulativity of creation negative : - superorganisms have their own conatus and dynamics - care little about individuals - inertia

19. From Nature to Culture

20. from Nature to Culture

21. outline 1. Societal Psychology: principles and history (Prof. Gaskell) 2. Homo Socius : « group member by design » 3. WIT: culture as a distributed guidance system.

22. human colonies are now complex built environments with many artefacts

23. Installation

24. Installations

25. Installations

26. Societal control: the world as « installation » • Physical layer (objects) provide affordances 2. Humans interpret objects and situations 3. Institutions control

27. Installation Theory Social space: institutions Physical space: objects Mental space: representations

28. Installation Theory Physical space: objects

29. Affordances at physical level « Roughly, the affordances of things are what they furnish, for good or ill, that is what they afford the observer. (…) they are ecological, in the sense that they are properties of the environment relative to an animal. (…) Affordances do not cause behavior but constrain or control it. Needs control the perception of affordances (selective attention) and also initiate acts. An observer is not ‘bombarded ’ by stimuli. He extracts invariants from a flux of stimulation. » [Gibson, 1967, passim] NB: Jacob Von Uexküll’s notion of connotationof activity (1952) is more philosophically solid because not tied into realism, but may be less usable for didactic/operational purposes. James J. Gibson (1904-1981) Davies, CA, 1978.

30. affordances

31. Interpretation into action should I push or pull this door?

32. Installation Theory Physical space: objects Mental space: representations

36. Installation Theory Social space: institutions Physical space: objects Mental space: representations

37. Attatürk 1925 : « no fez » Institutions in social space : rules and laws about hats

38. Installation Theory Social space: institutions Physical space: objects Mental space: representations

40. Installation Theory Social space: institutions Physical space: objects Mental space: representations

41. 3. installation theory (Lahlou, 2008) Social space: institutions x Physical space: objects Mental space: representations

42. Take-away part 2 Behaviour is simultaneously determined at 3 levels: material, psychological, social Understanding and changing the system needs to address the 3 levels Societal psychology’s domain is the psychological level, but the overlaps with the 2 other levels

43. Societal psychology 15 props (Himmelweit & Gaskell, 1975) • Human beings need to be studied in a sociocultural context. The individual and the collective cannot be separated ontologically. Societal psychology requires a systems approach. And multilevel (micro/macro) • The ecology of the environment, its objective characteristics, needs to be studied alongside its mediated reality • Maintain a historical perspective. People create social organizations—but it is the social organizations that recast people • Innovation is as much an imperative of the social system as is conformity • Theoretical and methodological pluralism. Cross-fertilization between StP social sciences is indispensable. Including streams of Psychology. • And between basic and applied research. Adopt a wider range of research tools. • Developing conceptual frameworks rather than search for invariant laws • There is no such thing as value-free social research

44. Some principles There is nothing so practical as a good theory (Kurt Lewin) The best way to understand a complex system is to try to change it (Kurt Lewin) If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough (Robert Capa) Need not hope to endeavour, need not succeed to persevere (William of Orange)

45. s.lahlou@lse.ac.uk thank you.discussion?

46. the reproductive cycle of representations/objects INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL education, daily practice guidance Embodied form of Rep. Reified form creation, improvement, conservation of artifacts (technology)

47. « I love this Company ! » http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc4MzqBFxZE