Article ID: CBB001214425

The Rise of a Science in the Early Twentieth Century: The Forgotten Voice of Gualtiero Sarfatti and the First “Social Psychology” Volumes in Italy (2014)

unapi

Establishing social psychology as a distinct field of study has been the object of heated debate over the first decades of the 20th century. Entrenched in different theoretical traditions, such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, and criminology, the development of the conceptual boundaries of social psychology as an autonomous science was the result of a historic effort. Resulting from a negotiation process between competing stances, some voices relevant to the identity construction of social psychology have been lost over time. Within the framework of a polycentric historical perspective valorizing local histories, the present study aims to scrutinize those early voices, which were later marginalized. To this scope, we conducted a narrative analysis on the first volumes explicitly naming social psychology in their titles and identified the main themes, conceptual frameworks, and scientific advancements. The analysis illustrates the work of Gualtiero Sarfatti and articulates his forgotten contribution to drawing social psychology as a distinct discipline, built on the scientific method and positioned within the psychological sociocentric tradition. Our analysis reveals the leading role of Sarfatti in the disciplinary foundation of social psychology as a psychological science based on the concept of social psyche. Yet despite the fact his contribution was influential in the scholarly community of his time, our work highlights how his voice vanished from the subsequent disciplinary developments to date, and suggests some explanations behind this neglect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)

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Authors & Contributors
Serge Reubi
Chang, Ku-ming (Kevin)
Thuillier, Manon
Young, Cristobal
Wundt, Wilhelm
Weidman, Nadine M.
Concepts
Academic disciplines
Discipline formation
Psychology
Sociology
Economics
Historical method
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
20th century, late
Places
United States
Italy
Germany
France
China
Great Britain
Institutions
Academy Sinica
Society for Experimental Biology (Great Britain)
Yale University
Rockefeller Foundation
American Sociological Association
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