The Center for Psychosocial Studies is now the Center for Transcultural Studies.
Intellectual History of the Center The Center began with an interest in the
interface of psychological and social theory. During the early years
(1973-1976), the dominant psychological approach was psychoanalytic. The
principal goals were to bring the insights of psychoanalysis,
particularly the emerging psychology of the self, to bear on other
domains of social science and the humanities and into greater
consideration in the development of social policy. These goals were
advanced through seminar series (called workshops during this period) and
research projects. The clinical orientation of psychoanalysis was seen as
an especially strong barrier to cross-field communication with the more
academically oriented social sciences but, at the same time, there was a
belief that aspects of the clinical interview technique of psychoanalysis
could be useful in other social science investigations. Inversely, there
was an interest in broadening the psychoanalytic field through such
dialogue. The principal participants in these activities were academic
social scientists with interest in psychoanalysis and clinical
practitioners of psychoanalysis. The Center's psychological orientation during this period was not
confined to the psychoanalytic, however, and the interest in
psychoanalysis with its emphasis on affective issues was coupled with a
contrasting interest in cognitive issues, especially cognitive
developmental theory. The comparison of these two approaches and theories
formed an important part of the Center's activities for some time. The
interest in psychological development included the adult years,
especially the second half of life. Also, general issues in the
philosophy of science and various important integrative attempts within
the social sciences such as sociobiology and systems theory were explored
in seminar series. An array of scholars with interests other than
psychoanalysis thus became involved in Center activities. With time it became increasingly apparent that most psychological
theories were inadequate in several ways given the Center interests in
bringing together psychological and social approaches. In particular, the
theories were uniformly weak in their conceptualization of social
phenomena. The conviction emerged that there was a need to explore more
vigorously the social context and determination of individual behavior.
This could not be done simply by attaching a social theory to a
psychological one or by generating social dimensions out of psychological
ones, but involved finding or building theories which simultaneously
considered both individual functioning and social interaction from a
unified point of view. Thus, work at the Center shifted increasingly toward a consideration
of the social context of behavior and development (1977-1980). This
involved not only an attempt to clarify the social possibilities latent
in or compatible with the psychoanalytic and cognitive developmental
perspectives, but also to look for other psychological approaches with
more well-developed theories about the role of social interaction,
especially dyadic adult-child interaction. A central interest was the
child's acquisition of such social skills as language, perspective
representation (roletaking), and internalization of adult strategies.
However, even as the Center moved toward a fuller consideration of the
impact of social factors, the emphasis remained relatively psychological
and most Fellows were psychologists. During this period, there was also an increased emphasis on the
importance of sign phenomena (especially language) in mediating
individual behavior. This led to a broader interest in semiotics as a
possible alternative to those perspectives which focused narrowly on the
individual or on society. Particularly important at this time was the
work of the Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky; his interest in a more
social and semiotic approach to psychological development became a
critical bridge from our psychological work to our future interests in
semiotics and social theory. This approach eventually developed into a
full-fledged consideration of the importance of semiotic mediation in
psychosocial activity (1980-1983). Theories of long-standing interest at
the Center were reexamined in light of a semiotic perspective and more
interpretive approaches such as those of cultural anthropology were given
increased emphasis. Further, by using the semiotic approach new links
were made to areas outside of traditional social science such as literary
analysis and legal theory. During this period, the size of the in-house
staff was expanded to include more scholars with expertise in the areas
of sociology, anthropology, and social history. The mid-1980s interests of the Center developed from the fusion of two
lines of research already apparent in the preceding period. First, the
shift from a concern with smaller social units (e.g. dyads, sets of
immediate speech participants, etc.) to broader social forms was
completed. In particular, serious consideration was given to more
historically and culturally informed modern social theories which were
self-critical in their recognition of the distinctively Western nature of
the assumptions, methods, and theories of traditional social and
psychological science. Much of this era's work at the Center was aimed at
understanding the sociohistorical roots of Western society and the
relation of these configurations to the shape of contemporary social
science. Some of the concerns were with the nature of science itself,
while others were with the specific ethno- or sociocentric content of
various social, psychological, or semiotic theories. This interest in self-critical social theories converged with an
independent line of research concerned with intrinsically self-reflexive
dimensions of semiotic approaches. This involved the recognition that
social science assumptions, methods, questions and theories were
themselves subject to the same semiotic influences as those aspects of
psychosocial functioning which they took as their object. Both of these approached recognized that the conduct of research
activity itself is a psychosocial activity and that this very reflexivity
demands a critical attitude on the part of the investigators as to the
nature of their understandings. The similarities between the
self-reflexive elements in the semiotic approach and self-critical social
theories raised the possibility of a complementary or even a unified
critique of the epistemological underpinnings of many modern psychosocial
theories. Through diverse projects this concern with the historical,
cultural, and semiotic basis of psychosocial theory constituted the core
of continuing activity at the Center from 1983 to 1986. Multidisciplinary fora on specific topics began meeting during the
mid-1980s and continued their work as the Center changed its identity to
the Center for Transcultural Studies. For
information on the projects and publications which resulted, please follow
these links.
Go to the Center for Transcultural Studies homepage.