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Psycho-Social Studies in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Robert A. LeVine
Robert A. LeVine*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
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Extract

Psychological explanations of social behavior are currently unfashionable in the “institutional” social sciences of economics, history, sociology and social anthropology--though political science is something of an exception--and it is these disciplines that dominate African and other area studies. Received opinion has it that psycho-social studies of the “culture and personality” or “national character” type were discredited during the 1940's and early 1950's when a number of undisciplined studies claiming to account for the cultural and political patterns of modern nations and nonliterate peoples alike on the basis of child-rearing determinants were published and revealed the fallacious nature of their theory and methods.

On close examination this view may be seen to have several flaws. First, a logically sound theoretical position is not discredited by inadequate empirical studies carried out in its name; insofar as the studies are badly done they do not provide evidence for or against the position. In the case of culture and personality, the pioneering theoretical formulations of W.I. Thomas, Sapir, Linton, and Hallowell have never been refuted on logical or empirical grounds, and in fact their ideas have been extensively used by recent social theorists of the structural-functional school (Parsons and Shils 1951, Parsons 1964, Inkeles and Levinson 1954, Inkeles 1963, Spiro 1961), indicating at least an enduring plausibility in some quarters. Furthermore, it is quite common in intellectual history for the early adherents of a position to make excessive claims for it and to exaggerate the evidence in its favor, but this hardly justifies rejection of the position itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , April 1970 , pp. 105 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1970

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References

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