Reality is considered to lie somewhere "out there," to be a factual world existing independently of our perception and ways of thinking about it. In the conventional view, the goal of scientific inquiry is to describe that reality as accurately as possible. Scientific knowledge therefore tries to mirror reality; hence the metaphor of conventional science as a mirror or windowpane.
Science must also be free as possible from the particular biases that stem from any one point of view or position, so that its view is of reality, not of the viewer who happens to be looking at reality. Because scientific inquiry tends to be objective in representing nature as it really is, we can confidently appeal to science whenever we are faced with a dispute over matters of fact. Science offers a neutral, objective arbiter to reslove disagreements and distinguish what is true and correct from what is not.
This conventional understanding of science helps us to choose among competing theories: we select the theory that provides us with the most accurate representation of the way nature works; an inferior theory offers us a cloudy mirror or a dirty windowpane. Even if at any given time we cannot make a rational choice among competing theories because all the facts have not emerged, we nevertheless fell secure that eventually the facts will reveal nature's true story.
According to the conventional image of science, there are hidden truths awaiting our eventual discovery. Our personal preferences do not matter; what we wish to be true is not the issue. Scientific inquiry test its ideas about reality against the facts, and so ulimately resolves any existing conflicts by discovering the actual nature of reality. The truth will eventually be revealed and will be as pure as we imagine the truth to be - a picture that accurately describes nature and that transcends mere preferences, tastes, opinions, and social or historical biases.
It should now be apparent why the conventional view is so appealing, especially for the science of social psychology. The planets in our solar system are indifferent to the laws that govern their motion, but people have a definite interest in the laws that influence their own behaviour. By the very nature of its subject, social psychology needs to be objective, to be free from bias, to let the facts speak loudly for themselves regardless of our own personal preferences or opinions on what is or is not true.
It is important to realize that storytellers do not deny the existence of a reality independent of their theories about the nature of that reality. They do not see themselves as gods who create reality out of their stories. As Rorty puts it, "most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states" (1989, p. 5). In other words, the world exists whether or not our minds tell stories about it. But there is no way to know what is true about that reality without our intervention: "The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not" (Rorty, 1989, p. 5).
How, then, do we choose among competing theories? It is clear that in the sociohistorical view discrimination cannot be based on any neutral description of reality. Because every description of reality is in some way influenced by the observer's own standpoint there is no alternative than to appeal to various accounts or stories to get what is at best a version of the truth. There is no account that categorically fits reality better than any other: there can be no one "true" story. To claim to have discovered the one true story, we would need an objective description of reality to base a judgement on competing theories, but, according to the sociohistorical view, all descriptions of reality are necessarily biased by the observer's own standpoint.
When social psychology continues to rely on the college undergraduate as the primary source of information, what does this tell us about its understanding of science? If there is a basic reality of human social behavior, and the task is to discover the laws by which this reality functions, then there is little reason not to use college undergraduates in research. If the goal is to study something fundamental about all people - and this study includes college undergraduates - why not use them as research subjects?
Sears gives us some fairly good reasons to be wary about this kind of dependency on college undergraduates, noting that there are several important differences between this age group and older adults. For example, undergraduates' beliefs are often less well formed and their concerns rather different than those of older adults. He recommends broadening our sample in order to give our findings greater validity, maintaining the conventional belief, however, that those enlarged samples will still lead us to discover the fundamental laws of human social behavior.
The use of the laboratory, with it controlled conditions and possibilities for identifying true casual relationships, also reflects the conventional view; as Sears's data suggest, laboratory research continues to be the method of choice among social psychologists.
While it is indeed reasonable to insist that the controls available in the laboratory - usually missing elsewhere - permit investigators to feel more certain about the claims they make for their research findings, those who advocate the sociohistorical view insist that the bias that stems from the broad social and historical factors operating at the time and in the cultural fabric in which the research is conducted are still at work. Even the laboratory cannot eliminate all kinds of bias.
While these broader social and historical biases cannot be eliminated, we can become cognizant of theri effects by seeking diverse frameworks within which to conduct our work. Thus, the methodological priorities for those adopting the sociohistorical view urge us to engage in more cross-cultural research. This would align social psychology with a kind of ethnopsychology, examining the various cultural and subcultural theories that different communities have formed about their lives and that guide their experience and behavior. Throughout this text, we will see many illustrations of this view, and have opportunities to examine some of its implications for the kinds of understanding that we achieve.
Table 1.1 summarizes the four points we have examined in this chapter distinguishing the conventional from the sociohistorical views of science.
Conventional Sociohistorical
1. Primary Goal To describe the world To describe the various
of human social experience accounts of human social
and activity as it really experience and activity;
is and as it really to understand both their
functions. social and historical
bases and the role they
play in human life.
2. Governing Belief There is a place from We can only encounter
which to see reality reality from some stand-
that is independent of point; thus, the observer
of that reality; thus, is always standing somewhere
there can be be a and is thereby necessarily
nonpositioned observer a positioned observer.
who can grasp reality
as it is without
occupying any particular
biasing standpoint.
3. Guiding Metaphor Science is like a mirror Science is like a story-
designed to reflect things teller proposing accounts
as they really are. and versions of reality.
4. Methodological Methods are designed to Broad social and historical
Priorities control those factors factors always frame the
that would weaken the investigator's understanding;
investigator's ability the best we can achieve
to discern the true is a richer and deeper
shape of reality. understanding based on
encountering the historically
and culturally diverse
accounts that people use
in making their lives.