Applied Social Psychology: A Critical Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this analysis is to review, through a critical theoretical lens, social psychology applied to work and organisations. In our reading of the applied social psychological literature four key issues emerged. These include the valorisation of a positivist epistemology, an owner/management perspective on workplace issues, a focus on intra‐psychic variables or internal mental states when accounting for organisational problems, and the ignoring of moral and ethical commitments in determining workplace research and practice. Each of these issues is then further analysed in light of insights from the field of Critical Management Studies. This alternative approach to organisational behaviour points to the ways in which applied social psychological theory and practice have the potential to disadvantage workers.

Critical positions: Situating critical perspectives in work and organizational psychology

“…While scientific objectivity has been lauded by some as a guarantee against managerial co-optation (e.g., Palmer, 2006), the distance between theory and practice has fomented concerns over the "relevance" of WOP research (Cascio & Aguinis, 2008). When framed from critical or humanistic perspectives, this translates into a critique of the lack of moral and ethical engagement within workplace research (Lefkowitz, 2011;McDonald & Bubna-Litic, 2012). Narrow criteria around the validation of and relationships between constructs obscure alternative ways of knowing and theorizing, limiting self-reflection among researchers and hindering goals of emancipation in organizational life (Steffy & Grimes, 1992).…”

“…Critical perspectives have had a continued, if marginal, existence within psychology more broadly, addressing the lived experiences of persons within systems of power (Fine, 2012;McDonald & Bubna-Litic, 2012) and examining psychology in its relations to domination (Rose, 1996) and emancipatory possibilities (Teo, 1999). Within this small but feisty subfield of critical psychology, critical voices within work and organizational psychology have been even more infrequent (cf., Bal et al, 2019;Manroop, 2017;Mumby, 2019;Parker, 2009;Weber, Ho ¨ge, & Hornung, 2020).…”

Analysing power and control in work organizations: Assimilating a critical socio-psychodynamic perspective

“…System-justification thus effectively manipulates and dominates disadvantaged groups by imposing a "false consciousness". Organizational applications of system-justification are promising (Proudfoot and Kay, 2014), corresponding with increasing (ongoing and renewed) interest in socioideological components of management control (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2004) and the pervasive roles of ideologies in work organizations more broadly (Seeck et al, 2020;Hornung, Höge and Unterrainer, 2021), as well as their subtle, tacit, subliminal, and (therefore) largely unquestioned biasing influence on topics, theories, epistemologies, and methods of applied psychology (McDonald and Bubna-Litic, 2012), organization science (Bal and Dóci, 2018), and related academic fields.…”

“…The present contribution focuses on such advanced forms of power and control from a psychological perspective on the labour process (Gandini, 2019;Thompson, 2010). For work and organizational psychology and related disciplines, a central (yet often neglected) background dynamic, which, however, is essential for adequately describing, explaining, and predicting experiences, attitudes, and behaviours of individuals and groups in work contexts, thus, is the antagonistic interplay of top-down directed power structures and control mechanisms with bottom-up processes of employee influence, self-determination, and resistance (McDonald and Bubna-Litic, 2012;Mumby, Thomas, Martí and Seidl, 2017). In addition to the omnipresence, multitude and complexity of associated psychological processes, a critical analysis of power and control is further complicated and rendered confusing by an inherent tendency of hegemonic modes of power to obfuscate and obscure their own workings.…”

“…Supporting the required theoretically comprehensive and indepth analytical approach, critical socio-and psychodynamic perspectives, aimed at exposing, problematizing ("denaturalizing"), deconstructing, and counteracting these interdependent and conflictual systemic tendencies, tensions, and underlying drivers, antagonisms, and dialectics, however, are largely marginalized or ignored in mainstream academic psychology (Gabriel and Carr, 2002). The field of work and organizational psychology, in particular, tends to treat omnipresent and ubiquitous issues of power at work in a rather superficial (and ideological) way, compared to critical perspectives in sociology and management studies (Bal and Dóci, 2018;McDonald and Bubna-Litic, 2012;Mumby, 2019;Ozcan, 2012). Based on the preliminary assessment that the relevant literature is sprawling and fragmented by disciplinary fault lines, this contribution sketches out an attempt to integrate relevant theories, models, and concepts from the fields of psychology, sociology, management studies, and related social science disciplines into the foundations of a socio-psychodynamic understanding of power and control in work organizations.…”