Which of the following is one of the reasons why early efforts to use a “big theory” approach to psychology has limited effectiveness?

Abstract

In 1957, Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance burst on the scene and revitalized social psychology with its deft blend of cognition and motivation. For the next two decades, the theory inspired an extraordinary amount of exciting research leading to a burgeoning of knowledge about human social behavior. The theory has been referred to as "the most important single development in social psychology to date" (Jones, 1976, p. x). But, by the mid-1970s the allure of the theory began to wane as interest in the entire topic of motivation faded and the journals were all but overwhelmed by the incredible popularity of purely cognitive approaches to social psychology. Recently, social psychologists seem to have rediscovered motivation and several minitheories have emerged blending cognition with motivation-in much the same way that Festinger did some 35 years ago. This article traces the history of these developments and attempts a synthesis of some of the newer theories with the dissonance research of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

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One of the most original and sometimes neglected contributions of Freud's late mental topography was the resulting transcendence of the old debates on man as 'by nature social' or as 'by nature antisocial' and the casting of a new and uniquely illuminating light on the relationship between the individual and his social environment. By splitting the mental apparatus into three interacting but distinct mental agencies, Freud achieved more than a clear articulation of mental dynamics—he developed a complex and compelling view of the individual as both internalizing and resisting culture, and a view of society as both part of the individual and as an externality confronting him as an alien force. For what else does each of the three protagonists of the mental apparatus represent if not a distinct facet of the individual's ambivalent relationship to his social environment? The id, with its blind defiance of all external considerations, stands in direct opposition to cultural requirements; these requirements are nonetheless internalized in the superego, with its slavish and uncritical devotion to external law; and the ego, with its compulsive urge towards mastery and control of externality, stands for yet a different facet of the same relationship between individual and society. Far from abstracting the individual from his social milieu and concentrating on mental dynamics, it seems to me that Freud's theory is in its very essence social, addressing not only the issue of how individuals cope with the social forces which constantly act on them but also how culture tolerates the unruly instinctual endowments of the individuals, forever taming them, modifying them and redirecting them in furtherance of social aims. Freud's towering intellectual achievement in this respect is the substantiation of the proposition that all civilization has been based on two indispensable pillars: first, the systematic frustration, manipulation and suppression of human desires, and, second, on the provision of an endless string of emasculated substitute gratifications, ideals and illusions. As a result each individual suffers from a variety of discontents and illusions, which can be regarded as the main costs of civilization to the individual. Locked in a vicious circle, discontents and illusions decide the human predicament: the illusions deepen the discontents for which they ostensibly offer consolations. This proposition not only places the clinical concept of neurosis at the heart of the relationship between individual and society, but also places Freud in the middle of two century-old debates—the debate concerning the nature of man as a social animal, and the debate on the causes of human suffering and the preconditions for eventual redemption. The first purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that far from centring on the individual, Freud's thought is in its essence social and that it represents one of the most advanced positions in our understanding of civilization, its illusions and discontents. I will then examine whether Freud's discussions of culture reflect the specific conditions of his historical epoch and of his cultural milieu or whether they apply equally to all cultures. In particular, I will argue that while different cultures generate their own unique medley of discontents and illusions, these result from certain constraints and processes common to all cultures. Finally, I will suggest that although the demands of the technocratic consumer society may have shifted away from those studied by Freud, our culture is free of neither discontents nor illusions—and that the mode of bringing them to light and subjecting them to criticism remains the same. ————————————— (Ms.

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