Insects, instincts and boundary work in early social psychology

Abstract

Insects factored as 'symbols of instinct', necessary as a rhetorical device in the boundary work of early social psychology. They were symbolically used to draw a dividing line between humans and animals, clarifying views on instinct and consciousness. These debates were also waged to determine if social psychology was a subfield of sociology or psychology. The exchange between psychologist James Mark Baldwin and sociologist Charles Abram Ellwood exemplifies this particular aspect of boundary work. After providing a general background of the debates, I turn specifically to the writings of Baldwin and Ellwood between 1890 and 1936, tracing the use of insects as 'symbols of instinct'.Keywords boundary work, consciousness, early social psychology, insects, symbols of instinct The use of insects as 'symbols of instinct' factored into the debates of instinct and consciousness that became especially salient in the boundary work of early social psychologists. Early social psychologists proclaimed various differences between humans and social insects, such as culture and intellect, in order to establish the arguments for a human consciousness that went beyond instinct. Instinct was one of the shared, yet contested, concepts in both fields of sociology and psychology and therefore a crucial point of discussion in early social psychology. In this article I intend to examine the use of insects in the social psychological discourse for a closer look at the idea of instinct and the boundary work within the field. Defining social psychology involved

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