7/26/2019 McGuire vs Ring

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JQURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOL OGY 3 124-139 1967)

Some Impending Reorientations in Social Psychology:

Some Thoughts Provoked by Kenneth Ring

WILLIAM J. MCGUIRE

Columbia University

The creative tension between basic and applied research gives rise

from time to time to feelings of uneasiness such as those recently ex-

pressed by Kenneth Ring 1967). Just as anxiety in the individual can

have the beneficial function of signaling an imbalance among the con-

tending aspects of his personality, so such expressions of concern about

current emphases n our scientific establishment can be a useful warning

sign that the dynamic equilibrium between basic and applied research

has been disturbed by a temporary perturbation too far in one direction.

Ring discerns a current stress in favor of basic, theory-oriented research.

His choice of some paragraphs of mine to illustrate this overemphasis is

apparently the reason why I have been asked to comment on his article,

even though no offense was, I feel, implied and none certainly is inferred.

It seemsundeniable to me that, as Ring contends, the basic and applied

streams of research in psychology have been flowing progressively further

apart during the past 10 or 15 years, and that the emphasis on basic

research has been increasing. I would also agree though I recognize this

point to be more debatable than the foregoing) that these trends have

proceeded to an extent that is unfortunate. Indeed, I am in agreement

with most of the substance of Rings paper and differ mainly in that I

regard the undesirable trends which he points out as less of a worry than

he does. His comments do make me want to describe publicly some

coming trends in social psychology that I have been urging privately

for some time. Hence my comments constitute an extension, rather than

a refutation, of Rings remarks. My emphases all on somewhat different

points from his, and I do not repeat all of his theses, so Rings paper

deserves a rereading in its own right lest these additional points of his

be lost.

Where I would disagree with Ring is on his seeming expectation that

the separation of the two streams of research and the overemphasis on

basic research show signs of being continued and even accentuated for

the foreseeable future in social psychology. I would like to argue here

that, on the contrary, we shall in social psychology soon be witnessing a

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