PREFACE 1 Social psychology has developed as a branch of psychology, and a branch of sociology. Whether it be regarded as a part of the one science, or of the other, or as a separate science, it has a distinct field, which requires inductive study. In this book I have attempted an analysis of certain psychological processes that extend throughout social organization. These processes, as pointed out by Professor Dewey, have their roots in instincts. In Book I, I have given the shortest possible description of these processes, or dispositions, as I shall call them, and, in the following books, have analyzed their functioning in social organization. I do not cover all social organization, for instance, the press, which is better treated in a study of social suggestion. And I do not treat all social-psychological processes. The limits of one book forbade it. The extended treatment of other processes, for instance, social suggestion, social processes of feeling and thought, conventionality and the functioning of social attitudes, is reserved for other books. The treatment of those processes in this book is subordinate to its main purpose-the analysis of economic and social conflict. This approach to social psychology arouses interest by bringing readers immediately into contact with concrete processes. They thus acquire a background for the more abstract studies which require special treatises. Wherefore, this book may serve as an introduction to the study of the psychological processes of social organization. This volume covers a field different from that treated in the author's "Foundations of Social Science." It is the first of the projected volumes on social psychology referred to in the preface to that work. The social psychologist should begin with a statement of his problem. The first main problem is the problem of conflict, and it requires an analysis of conflict throughout social organization. In addition to this the processes of feeling and thought that are involved in adjustment, the development of personality subserved, and the processes of social suggestion and control in which that development occurs are successive aspects of the great problem of social behaviour. A study 1 Dewey, The Need for Social Psychology, Psy. Rev., Vol. XXIV, July, 1917, 268. of conflicts naturally begins with economic conflicts, that is, with an analysis of the conflict of interests in industrial relations. We shall find that the causes of conflict here lie not only in an inequitable distribution of wealth and irresponsible economic power but in certain psychological conditions that extend throughout the social organization. Our task is to study: (1) the effect of economic conflict throughout social organization; (2) the clash of egoistic dispositions as a cause of conflict; (3) the inevitable conflict between egoistic and idealistic dispositions; (4) the failure of an idealistic leadership to win popular support. Because conflict appears to be essentially a conflict of dispositions our first task is to describe the dispositions involved. Then follow the analyses of conflict. This is a book for students and for the general reader. There are two things that a reader can get from a book: a knowledge of the subject, and an intellectual attitude that will serve in acquiring a critical knowledge of any subject. To train the latter is as much my aim as to impart the former. Therefore,, I have tried to make the book thought-challenging and not merely illuminating, also to give the reader contact with the sources. Citations of works are given, not for the purpose of giving authority to the text, but to assist critical study. Still further to stimulate a critical attitude, often I have avoided generalizations and an explicit statement of principles where analyses implied principles. If the reader will take the critical attitude he will avoid being repelled by truth because it "seems radical," and confusing it with "propaganda." The data of social psychology have, in a superficial way, long been common property, wherefore the tendency is to manifest a somewhat more intolerant spirit toward new interpretations of them than of data that are revealed only by telescope or microscope and laboratory experiment and are known only to the few. The social psychologist is concerned not only with prevailing behaviour but with variations, with those unusual aspects which may not be evident from the documentary sources of the social sciences but are apt to be found more or less by chance in field work. Formulas of prevailing motives do not tell the whole truth, for instance, "quest of profits" as a formula of the motives of business enterprise does not. It is used to formulate the prevailing motives of business enterprise under the existing system, and not as an exclusive generalization of the motives of all business men or of the inevitable motives of bus |