Julian Blackburn - Psychology and the Social Pattern

The International Library of Sociology

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL PATTERN

Founded by KARL MANNHEIM

The International Library of Sociology

SOCIOLOGY OF BEHAVIOUR AND PSYCHOLOGY

In 18 Volumes

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL PATTERN

by

JULIAN BLACKBURN

First published in 1945 by

Routledge

Reprinted in 1998, 2000, 2002

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

First issued in paperback 2013

1945 Julian Blackburn

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN13: 9780415177900 (hbk)

ISBN13: 9780415864145 (pbk)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

Different psychologists with their varied approaches and interests have fostered the development of psychology in many different directions. From each of the principal developers psychology has gained a great deal. Sometimes the gains have carried with them certain elements of disadvantage, as when the followers of the original exponent of a doctrine have been led away by their ardour to ignore the contributions of those with whose views they disagree, but on balance the gain to psychology as a whole by the divergence of views of its exponents has been considerable.

My own prejudices and antipathies will probably become obvious to the reader as he wends (or ploughs) his way through this book. I should prefer to leave it to him to discover them for himself rather than to make out a list of all those of which I am consciously aware. I must, however, make a few comments about some of them which have importantly influenced the choice of topics in, and the arrangement of, the book.

I have attempted to give some account of most of the major contributions to experimental psychology and to introduce these contributions into those parts of the book where they seemed to be most relevant, but what has influenced me more than anything else has been an attempt to bring out the social aspects of those topics which are generally discussed in textbooks on psychology, and also to try to forge a link between the topics usually confined to textbooks on general psychology and those which are more usually discussed in textbooks on abnormal psychology. At first I intended to write a textbook on social psychology, but as the planning of the book proceeded I felt that it was first of all necessary to see how far the social aspects of general and abnormal psychology could be explored. Then, having cleared the ground, I could proceed, as I hope to do, to discuss the social framework into which human beings are bornthe effect on their behaviour of heredity, race, sex, class and family lifeand then to discuss the social relationships which impinge upon and influence their behaviour in society. These topics I hope to discuss in two forthcoming books.

One chapter heading which is found in practically every textbook on psychology has not been included in this book. That is a chapter on learning. The reasons for this are first that part of what I have to say on the subject is to be found in the chapter on motivation, and secondly that I hope to deal with the topic in much greater detail (in so far as it concerns human beings) in a future book on developmental psychology.

This book, therefore, should be regarded as the first part of an attempt to estimate the interaction between the individual and society, I hope and believe that the topics and the treatment hang together sufficiently closely for it to be able to stand on its own, but I have constantly held at the back of my mind a picture of its relationship to the other topics which I have planned to discuss in the future.