[8.1]

Features of the New Paradigm: Ethogeny and Ethnomethodology. Barry R. Schlenker (On the Ethogenic Approach: Etiquette and Revolution. In L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, op.cit., 1977', pp. 315-334) reviews the "doldrums [that] have recently settled on the field of social psychology (and social science in general)." Several writers mentioned by Schlenker have contended that "contemporary social psychology . . . has failed-its perspective, theories, and methods are deficient" leading to "despair . . . sufficiently serious to cause a questioning of whether social psychology is a science in any meaningful sense of the term." At the base of this feeling lies a "crisis of confidence precipitated by unfulfilled promises of relevance and disappointment at the theoretical fruits of our research." This research is known as parametric research and purports to describe functional relationships between variables. This type of research approach was described in the previous chapter (7) on the topical structure of social psychology.

In contrast to this fragmentary approach, the article by R. Harre (The Ethogenic Approach: Theory and Practice; same volume, pp. 283-314) presents an alternative approach, one that is global and "humanistic" in outlook. It is based on an anthropomorphic model of man and rejects parametric interpretations. Current approaches in experimental social psychology are abandoned in favor of newer, ethnomethodological techniques of data gathering. The student of social psychology ought to be familiar with both of these techniques (lee CHARTS T/l; T/3; T/6 for further details). Schlenker exemplifies this attitude of conciliation and eclecticism when he

says that "there are advantages and liabilities in each. Happily, however, one should not feel compelled to make a choice between them; the best can be selected from what each has to offer. 11 Thus, despite the difficulties of the present, the future of social psychology looks good to him:

"Contemporary social psychology does indeed have its problems: the mathematical techniques which would allow it to deal with many of its problems do not exist . . . ; its theories are often less than rigorous and elegant; its methods are often applied to trivial problems problems . . .; and our awe at the scientific method makes us misunderstand its simplicity and attempt to follow 'rules' that those in other disciplines would never consider . . . But even with such problems, I do not see the decaying flesh of the straw man that is described by most critics." (p. 317)

In order to follow and study this special problem in social psychology, we will review Harre’s proposals, and after that, Schlenker's amendments of them. Their joint effort will lead us to a more pragmatic and realistic conception of social psychology, one that synthesizes a unity between the experimental laboratory and the community at large. This is the approach we are stressing in this course, the new synthesis in method that we have called the Daily Round Approach to Social Psychology. As shown in CHARTS V2, T/7, and V9, the daily round approach to social psychology directly involves the natural history of community. All available research tools and techniques are employed to investigate the "ethnodialectics" (or dynamic cultural forces) whose effects are visible upon the individual and constitute the person's socio-cultural environment. The natural history of community gives us two fundamental units: one is the unit of socio-cultural environment in any community, namely the daily round --the sum total of a person's physical, intellectual, and transactional accomplishments or deeds in the course of a routine day, any day, or any sequence of days. The second unit given by the natural history of community is the unit of socialized behavior for all human beings, namely the titles we ascribe when referring to things, events, ideas, etc., in short, anything. Titling on the daily round refers to all the possible records one can produce of human activity: movements, utterances, noticings, imaginings, thoughts, and so on. The sum total of these records are assembled into a collection which we call the Daily Round Archives. These serve as the source of data and analyses for the systematic study of community (see Chapter 5).

In our opinion, the reason that the daily round approach has not been utilized thus far, despite its simplicity, is the reluctance of most 'scientifically' oriented social psychologists to give up laboratory experimentation for archival research. In essence, they do not trust the archives! This view is understandable given the idea that archival data consist of people's reports of their behavior and these reports are necessarily biased, subjective, unreliable. For example, suppose you wanted to find out whether students would feel more conflictual if they were asked to lie about an experiment to prospective subjects when they received $20 for doing it, versus only $1; obviously, one either guesses one way or another, or, one makes a prediction within a test situation and checks it out with an experiment. As it is, the experiment was run by several social psychologists, notably Leon Festinger, inventor of the concept of "cognitive dissonance. (Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959) The findings show that the $1 group reported feeling more conflict than the $20 group.

Thus, given strict informational questions about choices or responses in particular situations, the experimental approach (as well as the "survey" approach) succeeded in giving us firm answers. This has been largely the "modern" history of social psychology. This is what has lead humanistic critics to describe contemporary social psychology as "trivial, constipated, and overly conservative, even by scientific standards"- -according to Schlenker (pp. 316-317). Fortunately, the same ideals of rigor that have characterized the creative efforts of traditional experimentalism are usable, and are needed,. in the pursuit of the natural history of community. Once a way is shown for the objective gathering and analysis of daily round records, we are confident that social psychologists of different schools and methodological orientations will mine this rich field for the benefit of society.