JOURNAL

OF

EXPERIMENTAL

Experimental

SOCIAL

Social
about

PSYCHOLOGY

3, 113-123 (1967)

Psychology:
Some

Frivolous

KENNETH
University

Some

Sober

Questions

Values

RING

of Connecticut

Thirty years ago, Kurt Lewin, emboldened by an almost heroic vision

of psychologys potential contribution to the study of man in a social
context, founded the Group Dynamics movement and thereby transformed and ultimately came to dominate the field of experimental social
psychology. Through a complex interplay of theory, research, and social
action, Lewin believed it possible for a discipline of social psychology
not only to further the scientific understanding of man, but also to
advance the cause of human welfare at the same time. Even 30 years
is too short a span to permit us to evaluate accurately the extent to
which social psychology has actually made this dual contribution to
science and society. As a substitute for this assessment,however, it may
prove instructive to examine whether and to what extent social
psychologists are nowadays guided by the same view of the field as
moved Lewin originally to establish it. How widely shared is this
Lewinian vision today? And if it is no longer the dominant conception
of experimental social psychology (as I shall argue it is not), what
conceptions and what values have supplanted it? These are the issues
to which this paper is addressed.
Although a certain arbitrariness is necessarily entailed, I do not believe
it is fundamentally misleading to distinguish at the outset three conceptions of social psychology which differ from one another primarily
in terms of values that govern both the substance and the manner of
research. I should like to mention and discuss relatively briefly two of
these conceptions and then comment at some length on the third, which
I believe embodies the ascendent values of the field today.
A humanistic, action-oriented social psychology was, of course, one of
Lewins legacies, and many social psychologists, even though their own
research may not reflect it,, are clearly sympathetic to and, possibly in
a somewhat nostalgic way, proud of this research tradition. The large
number of experimental social psychologists who are members of SPSSI
(The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues) testifies to
113
@ 1967 by Academic

Press Inc.