(1994). Charles Darwin, Paul MacLean, and the lost origins of “the moral sense”: Some implications for general evolution theory. World Futures: Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 187-196.

Piaget's social psychology is not widely discussed among psychologists, partly because much of it is still contained in untranslated French works. In this article I summarize the main lines of Piaget's social psychology and briefly indicate its relation to current theories in social psychology. Rejecting both Durkheim's sociological holism and Tarde's individualism, Piaget advances a sociological relativism in which all social facts are reducible to social relations and these, in turn, are reducible to rules, values and signs. Piaget's theory of (...) social values takes the form of a social exchange theory characterized in an abstract logical way. Piaget claims social exchange requires normative principles of reciprocity and that individual social development results in such an equilibrium because rationality itself is social and based upon social cooperation. These views, in turn, derive from Piaget's orthogenetic views concerning the course of evolution: development can be characterized as an increase in equilibrium manifested both in individual action and in social interaction. (shrink)

Traditionally, developmental psychology has been characterized by two approaches, one predominantly social and the other, cognitive. Despite this separatism, develop-mentalists have expressed the need for a better understanding of how these two facets of the person interact - a need for a better account of development within the person as a whole. However, such an integration has been difficult given the incompatibility of underlying assumptions guiding these two areas of inquiry. James Mark Baldwin's integration of social and cognitive development into (...) one theory highlights the utility of historical analyses for further progress in the field. In this paper, Baldwin's dialectical theory of personal growth is placed in historical context, highlighting similarities and differences between his approach and that taken by Piaget, and the legacy of his theory in current theory and research. The importance of self, the development of knowledge in the context of social relationships and the function of imitation are emphasized. (shrink)

In this paper I shall examine how the pragmatists regarded the context of a single self in time (the problem of personal development over the life course) and the context of a single self in social space (the problem not only of surrounding individuals but also of surrounding and fundamentally different groups). After a quick glance at the ontologies of the earlier pragmatists, I discuss the problems of individual development and social difference as they emerged society-wide during and after the (...) first pragmatist generation. Having specified these problems, I can set the second pragmatist generation in the context they provide. The paper concludes with a discussion of the centrality of accounts of development and difference in a processualized social ontology. (shrink)

An individual’s accountability to oneself leads to self-regulatory behaviour. A field experiment afforded an opportunity to test this relation, given that external accountability conditions were absent. A single group pre-test/post-test design was used to test the hypothesis. A group of full-time resident management students, n ≈ 550, take four meals during the day in the institute mess. As a part of the experiment, food wastage in the form of leftovers on the plates of subjects was measured. As a pre-test, the (...) measurement occurred at two levels. Subjects could see how much they are adding to the total waste by looking at a weighing scale placed under a waste basket, and they could also see the total waste data for each of the four meals for the day and a day earlier displayed at a prominent place. After 105 days, the weighing scale under the basket was removed, and as a post-test measurement, the total waste data for the four meals were noted down for another 72 days. A manipulation test indicated that the experiment has had the desired effect of invoking self-accountability in subjects during the pre-test phase, and diluting it during the post-test phase. Time series analysis of pre-test and post-test data indicated that the wastage data decreased in the pre-test phase. However, the post-test waste data showed an increase over a period of time. The results indicate that accountability conditions like social norms invoke self-accountability cognition leading to self-regulatory behaviours in individuals. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of the cognitive processes implied in the ego defense known as projection. Projection is first placed in the context of the general cognitive processes of attribution and ascription. Then we address defensive projection, and identify its distinctive features. In particular, whereas general projection consists in the ascription of one's own mental attitudes to others, defensive projection implies one's rejection of the ascribed mental states, and ascription is a means for supporting this rejection. We try to (...) understand how and why ascription is functional to rejection. Then, we examine a few types of defensive projection, and identify the main components and steps in the projective process. Finally, we draw some general conclusions. (shrink)