Mainstream Historical Discourse in Social Psychology

Operating within the epistemological framework of disciplinary history writing, this chapter attempts to construct a “disciplinary institution” perspective to deconstruct the process of constructing and reproducing mainstream historical discourse in social psychology. This discourse's establishment stems from the reinforced advantages of disciplinary institutional elites in social psychology and the symbolic hegemony of authoritative publications. Through reproduction within the infrastructure of disciplinary institutions, mainstream historical discourse leads to its symbolic hegemony, i.e., the symbolic hegemony of asocial individualism and experimentalism in American social psychology. Implicit in the construction and reproduction of mainstream historical discourse is an established mechanism of social forgetting. Consequently, the discipline's diverse research practices are simplified into a single narrative. The exciting conflicts, anxieties, discontinuities, and even temporary regressions in disciplinary evolution are smoothed and softened into a linear process of progress. The conclusion is that by deconstructing the dilemma presented by mainstream historical discourse in disciplinary history writing and the complexity of disciplinary historical realities, there is a call for the pluralistic writing of the history of social psychology. This chapter is expected to serve as a possible example offering inspiration and reference for the writing of general disciplinary history.