doise - 1982 - report on the european association of experimental social psychology

8/18/2019 Doise - 1982 - Report on the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology

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European Journal

o

Social Psychology,

Vol 12,

105-1

11 1982

uropean

Activi t ies

Report on the European Association

of

Experimental Social

Psychology

WILLEM DOlSE

Universite de G e d v e

INTRODUCTION

In 1967, two of the founding fathers of the European Association of Experimental

Social Psychology formulated the following diagnosis on the state of social psychol-

ogy in Europe during the earIy sixties: ‘Dispersed and isolated, researchers lack the

essential stimulant for creation provided by interaction and exchange. Unduly small

research units obtain neither the means nor the encouragement necessary for their

work. If the universities are able to offer adequate basic teaching, they cannot,

owing to their structure, their diversity, and shortage of staff, cater for the kind of

theoretical and practical training which the advancement of research

demands. Lastly, at the level of the subject itself; one encounters a lack of appreci-

ation damaging to scientific vigour, and cultural barriers prevent the attainment of

knowledge that is, if not universal in scope, at least capable of being generalized’

Jahoda and Moscovici, 1967,298s). On the basis of this diagnosis, the general aim

‘of creating a milieu favourable for social psychology in Europe’ was specified in

these terms: ‘Only action at an inter-cultural and supra-national level can mitigate

these difficulties; it must arise out of an effort from within the profession itself,

geared above all to an understanding of the prerequisites of the advancement of

knowledge. It will therefore be a matter of enlivening a discipline, promoting a

suitable climate

or

research

and

creating a bbscien tijk omm unity”

on a European

scale. These goals can be achieved by contact and communication between special-

ists, the laying open of common interests, the encouragement of joint enterprises,

the unified training of researchers, and the formulation of a clear conception of

social psychology’ ibidem, 299). Subsequently, the authors described the first

activities of the new Association under four headings:

Communication among researchers.

Promoting research.

Training of researchers.

Information and dissemination

of

studies.

I will use the same headings

in

reporting briefly on the Association’s recent

activities See Tajfel, 1972 and Jaspars, 1980 for other published reports). In the

second part of this report I will point to some new challenges facing the Associ

ation.

‘Presidential address delivered at the General Meeting

of

the European Association of Experimental

Social Psychology, University

of Sussex,

April,

1981.

0046-2772/S2/010105-07 01 OO

1982 by John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

Received 12

August

1981


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106 Willem Doise

I .

RECENT ACTIVITIES

OF THE

ASSOCIATION

Under the heading Communication among researchers, Jahoda and Moscovici

listed first the

Regular Conferences,

such as those held already in Sorrento 1963)

and Frascati 1 964). Ever since the Association received a legal status, governed by

the law of the Netherlands, these regular conferences are called the members’

meetings or general meetings and were held every third year successively in

Royaumont 1966), Leuven 1969), Leuven 1972), Bielefeld 1975), Weimar

1978) and Sussex 1981) with a steadily increasing number of participants as well

as scientific presentations. For instance, whereas only twenty-eight European social

psychologists participated in the Royaumont conference, more than one hundred

participated in the last general meeting. This last meeting was organized by our

Sussex members, particularly Alistair Chalmers, with the financial help of the

British Social Science Research Council, the Nuffield Foundation, and Sussex Uni-

versity. The some eighty papers and the fact that one half of our members were

present, witnessed that this meeting will have again fulfilled the function outlined in

the 1967 article: ‘These conferences, . provide opportunities for the presentation

of studies, the spreading

of

ideas, the forging of personal relationships and the

preparation of ground for future collaboration’ ib idem, 299).

Specific conferences were mentioned in the 1967 article under the same general

heading of Comm unication among researchers. These specific conferences ‘serve to

engender contacts in hitherto isolated countries Eastern Europe, Middle East,

Africa)’

ibidem,

301) and were started with a first East-West conference in Vienna

1967). Since then other East-West conferences were held in Czechoslovakia

1968), Hungary 1 974) and Poland 1977) bringing together each time a limited

number of social psychologists from Eastern and Western countries. Augusto Pal-

monari and his colleagues were able to organize in 1980 an East-West meeting at

the University of Bologna. It was the first time that this kind of meeting was

organized outside of a ‘neutral’ or ‘East European’ country; and yet, it was possible

to maintain a well-balanced proportion among participants from the East and the

West, thanks to the financial support of the Italian Centro Nazionale della Ricerca

and the Lega delle Cooperative. The papers presented at this last East-West meet-

ing dealt with different sociopsychological aspects of cooperation and even

included a discussion session with representatives

of

the Italian Cooperative

Movement.

Social psychologists of Spain and Portugal organized during 1980 national con-

ferences at which each time members of the executive committee were invited as

guest speakers. In December 1975, Henri Tajfel participated at such a specific

conference in Bologna, and just as that conference has seen in Italy a rapid

increase in membership and participation in activities of our Association, it is

expected that a similar development will now take place in Spain and Portugal.

Finally, a special meeting organized during the XXIInd International Congress of

Psychology in Leipzig 1980) should also be mentioned under this heading; this

meeting, organized by Hans Hiebsch on behalf of our Association, was open to all

social psychologists of the world and offered an unique occasion to develop plans

for establishing more contacts between our Association and social psychologists in

other parts of the world.

The second kind of activities envisaged in 1967 were exchange visits and small


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Presidential address 1981 107

specialized seminars

headed under

t h e

title:

Promotion of Research.

During the first

ten years of the Association numerous exchange visits and small working groups

were directly financed by the funds at the disposal of the Committee. For the time

being such financial facilities are no longer available. But the same activities still

take place. As a result of the communication network established by the Associa-

tion, members are invited to give conferences in each other’s departments, they

elaborate joint research projects and they participate in informal general exchange

programmes of post-graduate students. Furthermore, H. Brandstatter, G Stephen-

son and P. Stringer have organized specialized conferences sponsored, but not

financed, by the Association. Many more such specialized conferences were organ-

ized by our members and often advertised in the Newsletter.

It is difficult to evaluate to what extent these numerous activities organized by

our members were made possible by the existence of the European Association. No

doubt, the intervention of the Association in these activities has not been limited to

just furnishing an address list of potentially interested people. Such initiatives as the

founding of the Laboratoire Europken de Psychologie Sociale at the Maison des

Sciences de 1’Homme in Paris certainly would not have been possible without the

European Association and the cooperative tradition developed through its

activities. This laboratory is an extension of a part of Serge Moscovici’s laboratory,

and is conjointly directed by six members of our Association M. von Cranach, W.

Doise, J. Jaspars,

S.

Moscovici, K.

R.

Scherer and

H.

Tajfel). Its main activity until

now consisted in organizing specialized conferences of which about a dozen already

have been held in Paris, Aix-en-Provence, Barcelona, Bad Homburg, Urbino and

Rennes. The L.E.P.S. also sponsors three international research projects on the

social regulation of emotions, on minority influence and intergroup relations, and

on social representations in goal-oriented actions.

t

the previous general meeting

the presidential address Jaspars, 1980) was entitled ‘the Coming

of

Age of Social

Psychology in Europe’. The L.E.P.S. is a child of the European Association of

Experimental Social Psychology and therefore Social Psychology in Europe has

now reached the stage of parenthood.

Training of researchers was a third kind of activity to be undertaken by the Euro-

pean Association according to the Jahoda and Moscovici article. The authors gave a

report on the ‘First European Summer School in Social Psychology’ which took

place in the Hague in 1965. Since then, three other Summer Schools were run by

the Association, in Leuven 1967), Konstanz 1971) and Oxford 1976) and I

could transmit to the previous committee an offer by Claude Flament and Jean-

Claude Abric to organize with Jean-Paul Codol and Marie-France Pichevin the fifth

Summer School in Aix-en-Provence. At the end of March 1978,

J.

Jaspars could

announce in his presidential address: ‘You will be pleased to hear that the plans for

the next Summer School to be held in Aix-en-Provence in 1979

.

. are well under

way’ Jaspars, 1980, 424 . But just as five years separated the Oxford from the

Konstanz’ school, another five years will have separated the A h school from the

preceding one. These delays reflect the increasing difficulty to gather the necessary

funds for financing the school. Such difficulties do not prevent the European

Association from innovating; the fifth Summer School

will

be the first bilingual

English-French) one.

The organizing principle

of

the first Summer School was ‘that of “apprentice-

ship’,, whereby knowledge and professional skills are acquired under the guidance


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108 Willem Doise

of em inen t Eu ro pe an a s well as American specialists’ Jah oda and Moscovici, 1967 ,

303).

It is interesting to notice that nobod y would think of designating the partici-

pants in the Oxford school and the next school as apprentices.

Finally a last heading

of

the 19 67 article reads

Information and dzksemination

of

studies. Under this ti t le the Newsletter was mentioned together with a project

described in the following way: ‘A collection s chedu led

to

be started by the

Academ ic Press Lo nd on ) with the coo per ation of the Association will be directed

by Professor Henri Tajfel. Publication will be in English or in English translation’

ibidem,

305).

The number of ‘subscribers’ to the Newsletter increased very rapidly during the

last years but the C omm ittee’s secre tary Wolfgang Stroebe provided o ur mem bers

with as regular an edit ion as when the members of the Association were much

fewer. The series European Monographs

in

Social Psychology is now well know n,

and ab out two do zen volumes have been ed ited by Henri Tajfel .

To

colleagues who

persist in diagnosing a crisis in social psychology a nd com plain ab ou t its narrow ness

of scope and the limits of i ts paradigms, the Eu ro pe an M onographs series provides

a very stron g coun ter-argum ent. But here again, it should be m entioned that other

init iat ives were tak en by m any of ou r me mb ers and that now o ther series exist in

English as well as in almost all other European languages, publishing regularly

volumes in social psychology.

T h e European Journal

of

Social Psychology, which started in 19 71 , was not yet

announced in the Jahoda and Moscovici article. Nevertheless, ten volumes have

already appeared; it is perhaps the activity

of

ou r Association which acco unts for

most of the work. Th e outgo ing com mittee was not to take decisions respective to

the Jou rnal since the pre sent ed i tor was app ointed by the previous committee, and

the next edi tor wil l be appointed by the new committee. Arnold Upmeyer has

reported to this comm ittee and to o ur mem bers about his editorial policy which

succeeds in mak ing the E uro pe an J our nal a high level international jour nal, main-

taining its special accessibility to E ur op ea n au thor s.

T he foregoing relates t o th e Association’s activities as they were intended by the

founding fathers. I t certainly can be stated th at the Association has lived up to the

expectations of its founders: all the planned activities regularly take place and,

undoubtedly, the general si tuat ion

of

social psychology in Europe is now much

mo re promising than the on e described by Jah oda and M oscovici. But this report

would be incomplete i i t did n ot m entio n some challenges that stil l have to be m et

by the Association.

11. CHALLENGES A ND NEW PROSPECTS FOR THE ASSOCIATION

In the previous presidential address, Jos Jaspars 19 80 ,42 1s ) spent half-a-page on

a

total of seven pages defen ding the consortium idea with the lead sentence: ‘The

com mittee has seriously considered the fo unda tion of a Eu ropea n C onsortium of

which universities might become members

. .

.’. and explaining furth er that ‘Mem-

bers of the Co nsortium w ould be E ur op ea n universities and institutions prepa red to

pay an annual subscription considerably in excess

of

the present individual mem-

bership fee . .’.T he possibility of a consortium is still considered and an increase

of financial facilities would he lp a lot in impro ving the functioning of the Associa-


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Presidential

address

1981

1 9

tion. Yet, what apparently is true for individuals-they can be asked to pay all sorts

of subscriptions-may not necessarily be true for institutions. Social psychologists

should be well prepared to deal with such differences between individual and

collective or institutional functioning. But perhaps an approach other than just a

financial one is needed to advance the consortium idea, considering that the crea-

tion of some collective or institutionalized membership would seem to correspond

to specific traditions in Eastern countries. Another area in which the dialectics

between individual and collective approaches may very rapidly appear is related to

the mission confined to the Association by article 3 of our statutes: ‘The purpose

and objects of the Association are the promotion and development of experimental

and theoretical social psychology within Europe and the interchange of information

relating to this subject between the European members and other associations

throughout the world towards an international achievement of these objects and

purposes7.Many informal contacts with social psychologists from all over the world

have always helped our Association to pursue this goal and the creation of an

affiliated membership will now allow to formalize these contacts. But several of our

members think that also more formal contacts with other social psychological

associations throughout the world have to be established. At our meeting during

the Leipzig congress Serge Moscovici argued very strongly for establishing such

links by creating a world federation of national and regional associations of social

psychology. An international conference of social psychologists would be a first

step in reaching more of autonomy at the international level. Let us not forget that

at the International Congresses of Psychology, for instance, the programme on

social psychology is not necessarily determined by representatives of social psychol-

ogy associations. Nothing in our statutes is against the participation of our Associa-

tion in such a new international association; to the contrary, article 29 explicitly

states: ‘The executive committee may, for the promotion of cooperation with other

associations in the field of experimental social psychology, appoint members to

represent the Association in all national or international committees of contact,

deliberation or cooperation and invest these members with special powers, . . .’.As

a matter of fact, representatives of preceding committees have acted as members of

a Transnational Committee so that such organizational challenges are not really

new challenges to the Association.

A

second prospect which could be opened to the Association is of a quite

different nature. In three

of

the four headings on the planned activities of the

Association Jahoda and Moscovici use the terms ’research’ or ‘researchers’.

However, most of our members, who by definition are all dedicated to research,

spend an important amount of their working time in activities directly related to

teaching social psychology. In the eighty papers of the Sussex conference no one

dealt explicitly with the teaching of social psychology. Does this mean that teaching

social psychology has to remain a kind of less honourable, or even a despised, part

of our activity? Many of our members for instance, eight out of the ten members of

the last two committees) wrote textbooks or edited general books on social

psychology; almost all our members have an extended experience in explaining

social psychology to students or to broader audiences. Research on teaching social

psychology could constitute a vast area to be explored by the Association. Let us

hope that our Spanish colleagues, who in their Barcelona conference delivered

several papers on various teaching programmes in social psychology, will help us in

defining this new area of activity for the Association.


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1 10 Willem

oise

These considerations lead to issuing a third challenge to the members of our

Association. When in research and teaching they develop ideas, it is certainly not to

hide them under a bushel. There are however many reasons to be concerned about

the effects of these ideas when they are introduced in a social system. We indeed

have the proper techniques to study the impact of our ideas and therefore it

becomes theoretically very challenging to study the effect

of

theories on social

systems, the very object of these same theories for an example see Deconchy, 1980).

In her opening conference to the Sussex meeting Marie Jahoda concluded that

changing a cultural climate may well be one of the main effects of social

psychological research. I suspect that many disagreements would arise among the

members of our Association if they had to define which cultural changes could

result from their work. But lack of consensus ought not to be a sufficient reason to

overlook a problem. On the contrary, often conflicting points of views, when they

are made explicit, may further scientific thinking.

Finally a last challenge that could lead to new prospects in the Association’s

activities.

A

researcher’s principal interest will probably continue to consist in

pushing an explanatory model as far as he can, by showing how it explains more of

the variance than the propositions of other researchers or random factors. But

often much residual variance is left unexplained in this game. This is not necessarily

a bad state of affairs since many of us would probably be very unhappy if we had to

live in a reality fully explained by the models of our colleagues or even by our own

models. Nevertheless it is not considered very fashionable to be ‘pluralistic’ as a

researcher, i.e. to admit that more explanations can account for the same

phenomena. The situation is quite different when a social psychologist wants to

apply social psychological theories in order to change, and possibly to improve,

social reality.

It

then becomes a matter of combining different ideas, of following

the advice of the Alexandrian philosopher Potamon who recommended taking from

different theoretical systems the better propositions when they are mutually

compatible, rather than to start with constructing a new system. Such edecticism

will probably remain for an unforeseeable time the only way of applying social

psychology. This is a difficult exercise which is not too often present in our

discussions.

Some

recent small working groups sponsored by the Association, and

also the last East-West meeting, have shown that many members are indeed

interested in applying social psychology and, therefore, theoretical foundations of

applying social psychology should perhaps be more often discussed in our meetings.

Surely, there are other challenges that face the European Social Psychology

beyond those related to the organizational characteristics of our Association, the

evaluation of teaching experiences or the study of the possible impact and eventual

application of our ideas. The Newsletter remains open to ideas and suggestions

about such new challenges and prospects. To conclude this report, I would like to

return once more to the intentions of our founders transmitted to us in the Jahoda

and Moscovici article. They opened their ‘dkclaration d’intention’ with the

sentence: ‘The Association wishes to be neither a “learned society” nor a purely

formal linkage of specialists, but an agency promoting advancement’ ibid., 98).

This intention has been fulfilled as far as the Association became an ‘agency

promoting advancement’. It is my opinion that we cannot prevent the Association

from being at the same time a ‘learned society’; but only when new challenges are

met, will the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology be

prevented from becoming a ‘purely formal linkage of specialists’.


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Presidential address 1981 11

REFERENCES

Deconchy, J. P. 1 980).

Orthodo xie religieuse et sciences humaines,

Mouton Publishers, The

Jahoda, Ci and Moscovici, S. 1967). ‘European Association

of

Experimental Social

Jaspars, J. 1980). ‘The Coming

of

Age of Social Psychology in Europe’, European Journal

Tajfel,

H .

1972).

‘Some

developments in European social psychology’, European Journal of

Hague.

Psychology’,

Social Science

In

formation, 6 :

297-305.

o Social Psychology,

10: 421-428.

Social Psychology, 2: 307-322.

Author’s address:

Dr Willem Doise, FacultC de Psychologie, UniversitC de Genkve, 24, rue General Dufour,

1211 Genbve 4, Suisse.

doise - 1982 - report on the european association of experimental social psychology

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