Criticisms of the very idea of experimentation in social psychology are longstanding; a focal claim recently has been that social psychological hypotheses are non-empirical. We contest this claim, but argue that many experiments in social psychology are pointless nonetheless because they are fundamentally circular. Testing hypotheses requires operationalization; operationalization requires assumptions; and in social psychology, we argue, the necessary assumptions often already imply that the hypotheses can be confirmed. Confirmability of the hypotheses of a number of experiments recently reported in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology is shown to be implied by two illustrative truistic principles central to theories assumed in any tests of these hypotheses. We suggest that research aimed at finding specifically social psychological laws may only yield unfalsifiable truisms, while useful social psychological research aims elsewhere.
Asch, S.E. (1952). Social psychology. New York: Prentice Hall.
2.
Blumenthal, A.L. (1975). A reappraisal of Wilhelm Wundt. American Psychologist, 30, 1081-1088.
3.
Carnap, R. (1956). The methodological character of theoretical concepts. In H. Feigl & M. Scriven (Eds.), Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science: Vol. L The foundations of science and the concepts of psychology and psychoanalysis (pp. 38-76). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
4.
Christensen, S.M. , & Turner, D.R. (Eds.). (1993). Folk psychology and the philosophy of mind. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
5.
Collingwood, R.G. (1946). The idea of history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6.
Danziger, K. (1990). Constructing the subject: Historical origins of psychological research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7.
Fletcher, G. (1995). The scientific credibility of folk psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
8.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings (C. Gordon, Ed.). New York: Pantheon.
9.
Gergen, K.J. (1973). Social psychology as history. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 26, 309-320.
10.
Gergen, K.J. (1994a). Toward transformation in social knowledge (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
11.
Gergen, K.J. (1994b). Realities and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
12.
Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.
13.
Hempel, C.G. (1965). Empiricist criteria of cognitive significance: Problems and changes. In C.G. Hempel (Ed.), Aspects of scientific explanation (pp. 101-122). New York: Free Press.
14.
Hughes, J. , & Sharrock, W. (1997). The philosophy of social research (3rd ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman.
15.
Kelley, H.H. (1992). Common-sense psychology and scientific psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 43, 1-23.
16.
Markman, K.D. , Gavanski, I., Sherman, S.J., & McMullen, M.N. (1993). The mental simulation of better and worse possible worlds. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 87-109.
17.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. New York: Harper & Row.
18.
Nisbett, R.E. , & Cohen, D. (1996). Culture of honor: The psychology of violence in the South. Boulder, CO:Westview.
19.
Packer, M.J. (1985). Hermeneutic inquiry in the study of human conduct. American Psychologist, 40, 1081-1093.
20.
Parker, I. , & Shotter, J. (Eds.). (1990). Deconstructing social psychology. London: Routledge.
21.
Prentice, D.A. , & Miller, D.T. (1996). Pluralistic ignorance and the perpetuation of social norms by unwitting actors. In M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 28 (pp. 161-209). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
22.
Prislin, R. , Wood, W., & Pool, G.J. (1998). Structural consistency and the deduction of novel from existing attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 34, 66-89.
23.
Putnam, H. (1975). The analytic and the synthetic. In H. Putnam (Ed.), Philosophical papers: Vol. 2. Mind, language and reality (pp. 33-69). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
24.
Putnam, H. (1994). Rethinking mathematical necessity. In J. Conant (Ed.), Words and life: Hilary Putnam (pp. 245-263). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
25.
Quine, W.V. (1953). Two dogmas of empiricism. In W.V. Quine (Ed.), From a logical point of view (pp. 20-46). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
26.
Rabinow, P. , & Sullivan, W.M. (Eds.). (1987). Interpretive social science: A second look. Berkeley: University of California Press.
27.
Richardson, F.C. , & Fowers, B.J. (1998). Interpretive social science: An overview. American Behavioral Scientist, 41, 465-495.
28.
Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
29.
Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
30.
Ryan, C.S. , Judd, C.M., & Park, B. (1996). Effects of racial stereotypes on judgments of individuals: The moderating role of perceived group variability. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 71-103.
31.
Schaller, M. , & Crandall, C.S. (1998). On the purposes served by psychological research and its critics. Theory & Psychology, 8, 205-212.
32.
Schaller, M. , Crandall, C.S., Stangor, C., & Neuberg, S.L. (1995). `What kinds of social psychology experiments are of value to perform?' Comment on Wallach and Wallach (1994). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 611-618.
33.
Schul, Y. (1993). When warning succeeds: The effect of warning on success in ignoring invalid information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 42-62.
34.
Smedslund, J. (1988). Psycho-logic. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
35.
Smedslund, J. (1994). Non-empirical and empirical components in the hypotheses of five social psychological experiments. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 35, 1-15.
36.
Smedslund, J. (1995). Psychologic: Common sense and the pseudoempirical. In J.A. Smith, R. Harré, & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking psychology (pp. 196-206). London: Sage.
37.
Smedslund, J. (1999). Author's response: Psychologic in dialogue-reply to commentaries. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 40, Suppl., 123-138.
38.
Taylor, C. (1987). Interpretation and the sciences of man. In P. Rabinow & W.M. Sullivan (Eds.), Interpretive social science: A second look (pp. 33-81). Berkeley: University of California Press.
39.
Van Dijk, E. , & Wilke, H. (1993). Differential interests, equity, and public good provision. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 1-16.
40.
Van Dijk, E. , & Wilke, H. (1995). Coordination rules in asymmetric social dilemmas: A comparison between public good dilemmas and resource dilemmas. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 1-27.
41.
Wallach, L. , & Wallach, M.A. (1994). Gergen versus the mainstream: Are hypotheses in social psychology subject to empirical test?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 233-242.
42.
Wallach, L. , & Wallach, M.A. (1999). Why is experimentation in psychology often senseless?Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 40, Suppl., 103-106.
43.
Wallach, M.A. , & Wallach, L. (1998a). When experiments serve little purpose: Misguided research in mainstream psychology. Theory & Psychology, 8, 183-194.
44.
Wallach, M.A. , & Wallach, L. (1998b). Of surrogacy, circularity, causality and near-tautologies: A response. Theory & Psychology, 8, 213-217.
45.
Whiten, A. (Ed.). (1991). Natural theories of mind: Evolution, development, and simulation of everyday mindreading. Oxford: Blackwell.
46.
Winch, P. (1958). The idea of a social science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
47.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. New York: Macmillan.
