Year 3 Essay 1: Social - Individual Interface

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Grade awarded A+

The purpose of social psychology is to study human interactions and the effect they have on individuals. The way people make sense of the world and themselves and the way they behave is mediated by the connections, real and symbolic that they have with other individuals (Colman, 2008, p. 706, 709). However, some disciplines in the social sciences, particularly economics and politics take a different approach by describing people as monads, rational beings capable of taking optimal decisions on their own and to improve their overall well-being. Using a wide range of methods, such as qualitative ethological, narrative techniques, interviews and experiments, the researchers in social psychology outlined the limitations of the economic approach regarding human nature.

One concept that was particularly influential in economics and political science in the 1980s and 1990s in western economies was neoliberalism. It promotes individual freedom ‘laissez-faire’, while the state is regarded as “coercive” (Scott & Marshall 1999 p.510). The famous quote by Margaret Thatcher (1987) - ‘there’s no such thing as society’ captures the essence of neoliberalism, as people are seen as individuals, isolated from each other, while having a sense of agency and a personal responsibility to take care of their selves. Twenty-one years following Thatcher’s speech, the global economic crisis (2008-2009) challenged the ideology of neoliberalism (Steger & Roy, 2010). However, even before the financial crash, social psychologists took a critical approach of the economic ideology, because it failed to consider the imbalance in power relationships between capitalists and workers. For example, Valerie Walkerdine (2003, p. 240) offers the example of a very competent secretary who was already working long hours but despite her dedication, the managers were still giving her more tasks. What draws attention about this case is the woman’s discourse: she failed to see that she was exploited, but instead she was feeling she was just not good enough. The analysis of workers’ narratives shows that people are influenced by what they think is expected of them by society. Often, the employees are not aware when they are taken advantage of and as a result, they lack the agency to improve their situation. The neoliberal discourse acts in a normative way, constraining individuals to achieve the standards imposed by the capitalists.

According to social psychology, people are not monads - rational actors capable of accurately making sense of the world they live in (Taylor, 2017, p. 41). Research in behavioural economics (Kahneman 2011, Thaler 2015), demonstrates that while taking decisions, individuals are affected by cognitive biases. For example, people would rather avert a loss than obtain a gain. Moreover, as shown by the cases described by Walkerdine (2003), people are subjective. The emotions emerge in the social relationships with other people (Jackson, 1993, p. 207, cited in Burkitt, 1999). Not being middle class and not being able to participate in consumption makes people feel inadequate. Walkerdine (2003, p. 245, 246) makes reference to Lisa, a woman who wants to make a name for herself, to drive a nice car and who describes herself using categories of social status: working class/middle class, being successful. The culture people live in shapes people’s sense of self (The Open University, 2018, a). The qualitative analysis done by Walkerdine illustrates that people of modest means feel worthy if they manage to become middle class. The neoliberal discourse pathologizes individuals who fail to achieve financial success. In doing so, neoliberalism does not consider inequalities determined by income, class, ethnicity and education.

So far, the essay showed that people’s identity is shaped by the society they live in. The culture acts in a normative way by prescribing desirable attitudes and behaviours such as consumerism, hard work, responsibility for your own well-being. Paul Stenner (2018, b) describes how after the 1990s positive psychology was used to improve the welfare of individuals. Stenner gave the “quite upsetting” example of when people who were unemployed were offered well-being training. While positive psychology and nudge theory seem to act in a way to help people to optimise their lives, there are concerns with the fairness and ethics of using behavioural interventions as an alternative to actually provide the necessary help to ensure peoples’ well-being.

Still, over the last decades, inequality between the rich and the poor increased (Taylor 2017). Hardt and Negri (2012, p.10) cited in Taylor et al. (2017, p. 35) argue that based on the income, people can be ‘indebted’ - individuals who just take on more debt to cover expenses or ‘represented’ - wealthy, powerful individuals, leaders. Research (Tricomi, et al., 2010) found that there is “neural evidence” that individuals are inequality averse. While people are constrained by the demands of society, they are also motivated to increase their welfare (Choshen - Hillel & Yaniv, 2011). This fact leads to the question - Do people have one single stable identity? Gergen (1991, p.71) cited in Taylor (2017) argues that nowadays, people have multiple identities or are multiphrenic because of the different messages, sometimes opposing, in the environment. This allows people to have a sense of identity and to act towards improving their well-being. For example, while society can promote a certain body image, women also have the choice to think in a healthy way about their own bodies. Agency explains social change and how individuals try to shape the society they live in to create a fairer society. Holzkamp (1983) cited in Motzkau and Taylor (2017, p. 73) underlines that people have a social nature and therefore they participate to improve their living conditions. Unlike some of the social psychologists who emphasise the influence of society on the individual, Holzkamp takes a critical approach by doing research “from the standpoint of the subject” (Motzkau and Taylor, 2017, p. 73)

This essay showed that the relationship between the individual and society is complex and dynamic. Qualitative research outlines how a person’s identity is influenced by the culture in which she or he lives, for example, the neoliberal ideology that acts in a normative way promoting consumerism, hard work and personal responsibility. Positive psychology and nudge theory are used by the government and the elites to model the behaviour of people. However, there is neural evidence that people are averse to social inequality and there are is the anthropological argument that individuals worked together to improve their living conditions. Therefore, people are not just passive recipients of the messages received from the society they live in, but they also act in a way to change the world in a way that is fairer.

(1088 words)