The personal and political economy of psychologists’ desires for social justice.

Abstract

From an anticapitalist perspective we examine the personal and political economy of the desires for social justice expressed by psychologists associated with either the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) or Behaviorists for Social Responsibility (BSR). First, we consider terms and concepts related to social justice and acknowledge our conceptual debts to critical theory, poststructuralism, feminist epistemology, and liberation psychology. To provide context, we briefly review North American psychologists' historical relationship to the state. Then, after discussing the implications of different accounts of SPSSI's past expressions of interest in social justice, we assess three collections of articles in the last decade of SPSSI's house organ, the Journal of Social Issues. Next, we examine the interests in social justice shown by B. F. Skinner and subsequent generations of operant behaviorists, known as behavior analysts. Overall, our review of these two bodies of literature indicates that authors tended to use the language of social justice loosely and to present liberal political visions, abstracted from direct political involvement and aimed at reforming social conditions. Furthermore, we infer that the privileged socioeconomic status of academic psychologists compromises aspirations to contribute to social action that challenges the status quo. Accordingly, we propose abandoning attempts as psychologists to practice social justice. Instead, we advocate joining emancipatory struggles in solidarity with other citizens, while striving to overcome socioeconomic and intellectual hierarchies in academic psychology.

Politics and “Applied Psychology”? Theoretical Concepts that Question the Disciplinary Community

“…While the term 'prefigurative' been recuperated in some community psychological interventions, the insistence that the personal is political effectively blocks attempts to define what the two elements are so that there are questions raised about the extent to which they can be described in psychological terms (cf. Walsh and Gokani, 2014). An attention to the 'tyranny of structurelessness' frustrates, on the one hand, the attempt to put preformed models of a group or community to work and, on the other, the fantasy that there are political spaces that correspond to the ideals of 'liberation' psychology, free of structure (Kothari, 2011).…”

Relevance to Psychology of Beliefs about Socialism: Some New Research Questions

“…Teo () argues that mainstream psychology, embedded in the market economy, does not challenge the status quo, thereby reinforcing it, and supporting the interests of persons and groups who are more powerful. To this argument, Walsh and Gokani () add the related observation that psychologists tend to have narrow political visions as a function of our general position of socioeconomic privilege. Does our social class position influence our research, theory, and applications?…”

Forging Political Will from a Shared Vision: A Critical Social Justice Agenda Against Neoliberalism and Other Systems of Domination

“…intense desires for societal legitimacy, professional recognition, and peer acceptance, routinely SOCIAL JUSTICE AGENDA AGAINST NEOLIBERALISM 32 get in the way of valiant attempts at disrupting the economic and political status quo in society . In the past, many academic community psychologists have expressed their desires to promote social justice but unfortunately have tended to use the language of social justice loosely or remained content with providing rhetoric associated with pretensions of enacting radical change in communities (Walsh & Gokani 2014).…”

“…In their article discussing academic psychologists' desires for social justice, Walsh and Gokani (2014) expressed the notion that the privileged socio-economic status of academic psychologists has frequently compromised their aspirations to contribute to social actions that challenge societal status quo. They proposed that instead of pursuing the promotion of social justice as psychologists, advocates for social justice in the field of Psychology can choose to join other people in the community in their struggles to fight against injustices as engaged citizens.…”