PROCEEDINGS
OF TOMSK POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
OF THE ORDER OF THE RED BANNER OF LABOR named after S. M. KIROV

Volume 182 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 1969

WORLDVIEW AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

A. B. ZELMANOV

Worldview and social psychology are relatively independent and at the same time interconnected elements of the spiritual life of society. Clarifying the mutual influence, interaction, and interdependence of these variables in the complex system of social relations is made difficult by the ambiguity and indeterminacy of the terms “worldview” and “social psychology.” In order to reveal the connection and differences between worldview and social psychology, it is necessary to clarify the content of the initial concepts and to define the terms more precisely.

The problem of the relationship between ideology and social psychology attracts the close attention of researchers of the structure of social consciousness¹). In the most recent studies by Soviet authors, the connection between social psychology and the historical process²), and between social psychology and sociology as independent and interacting sciences³), is traced. The problem that interests us—the interrelationship of worldview and social psychology—is not discussed in the literature and awaits its solution. To a significant extent, the unresolved character of this problem is explained by the identification of the concepts ideology and worldview, worldview and philosophy⁴).

The present article contains an attempt to clarify the initial concepts and to indicate several directions for analyzing the problem. In connection with the fundamentally different understanding of the subject, tasks, goals, and initial categories of the science of “social psychology” in Marxist and bourgeois literature, a comparative analysis is made of the principal points of view on this question.

1. The Concept of Worldview

The practice of communist construction in the USSR has advanced the task of forming a scientific worldview among all working people of so-

¹) See: V. A. Yadov, Ideology as a Form of the Spiritual Activity of Society, L., 1961, pp. 50–65; V. N. Alekseev, “The Interaction of Ideology and Social Psychology,” in Problems of Social Psychology, M., 1965, pp. 235–272.

²) See: B. F. Porshnev, History and Social Psychology, M., 1966.

³) D. I. Chesnokov, “Social Psychology and Sociology,” in Theoretical and Methodological Problems of Social Psychology. 34th Symposium of the XVIII International Congress of Psychology, M., 1966, pp. 29–35.

⁴) Thus, M. Ya. Kovalzon, analyzing the interrelationship of worldview and morality, specifically stipulates that the term “worldview” is used “as a synonym for the concept philosophy.” See: M. Ya. Kovalzon, Worldview and Morality. Znanie Publishing House, M., 1966, p. 5.

of Soviet society. The Program of the CPSU notes that the scientific worldview is formed “on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, as an integral and coherent system of philosophical, economic, and socio-political views”¹.

The very formulation of such a task stimulated work aimed at clarifying the concept of worldview in general, and of the scientific worldview in particular.

In bourgeois philosophical literature, the concept of “worldview” was understood now as philosophy in the traditional scope of its problems, now its subject matter was narrowed to the theory of knowledge, now it was treated as a collection of pseudo-questions, now it was reduced to psychological and ethical problems². Bourgeois philosophers of the second half of the nineteenth century used the word “worldview” as a synonym for the words “philosophy” and “metaphysics.” V. F. Chernovolenko rightly observes that “for its appearance in philosophical, and then in everyday linguistic usage, the term ‘worldview’... was indebted to that new situation which took shape in the middle of the nineteenth century in connection with the rapid development of the concrete sciences and the need to rethink anew the position of philosophy in the system of knowledge”³.

Speculating on the shortcomings of earlier philosophy, positivism declared worldview questions to be pseudo-problems. The “philosophy of life,” represented by Schopenhauer and Dilthey (and in the most recent philosophy, existentialism represented by K. Jaspers), proclaimed the ideas of the goal and meaning of life, the problem of values, etc., to be the basic philosophical problems. The main emphasis here is placed on psychological norms. Thus, although the problem of worldview is posed in bourgeois philosophy, it is considered one-sidedly; moreover, the question of the class nature of worldview is entirely bypassed.

With the emergence of Marxist philosophy, which signified the end of all the old philosophy that had claimed the role of a “science of sciences,” the shortcomings of the previous natural philosophy were critically overcome, in connection with which the content of the concept of worldview also changed substantially. Criticizing the “system-building” bitter fruits of Eugen Dühring’s labors, Friedrich Engels noted that the polemic turned into a more or less connected exposition of the dialectical method and the communist worldview⁴. Without entering into a detailed analysis of the book Anti-Dühring, let us note only that, according to Engels, the new communist worldview includes both an analysis of problems of theoretical natural science and the principles of scientific socialism, political economy, and the philosophical method. Having laid the foundations of the scientific worldview, the classics of Marxism-Leninism considered the very concept of the communist worldview synthetically and integrally, including in it conclusions drawn from the theoretical analysis of problems of the natural and social sciences.

It should be noted that K. Marx and F. Engels concentrated their primary attention on clarifying the specificity of ideology. By ideology, K. Marx understood the illusory consciousness of the exploiting classes⁵. V. I. Lenin showed that not every ideology has an illusory character—the ideology of the proletariat, in particular, is profoundly scientific in its content. The question of the differences between worldview and ideology was not treated specially by the classics of Marxism-Leninism.

For a long time in philosophy textbooks the concepts of worldview and philosophy, worldview and ideology were identified with one another. Thus, in the book Fundamentals of Marxist Philosophy (Moscow, 1958), Marxism is characterized “as the worldview, as the ideology of the revolutionary working class,” and a little further on an equals sign is placed between the scientific worldview and dialectical and historical materialism⁶. As an uncritical tribute to old conceptions of worldview and philosophy, one can still encounter the proposition that worldview reflects “the world as a whole.”

P. V. Kopnin drew attention to the erroneousness of defining worldview as a view of the world as a whole. “No one has yet studied, seen, or observed the world as a whole... Worldview is not knowledge of the world as a whole,”⁷ for the world, infinite in space and time, is known infinitely by all the sciences.

The concepts “Marxist philosophy” and “scientific worldview” cannot be identical. Philosophy appears only as the theoretical foundation, as the philosophical “core,” of the scientific worldview. The concept of “worldview” is broader in scope than the concept of “philosophy.” According to established usage in our language, a worldview can be scientific or unscientific, progressive or reactionary, humanistic or misanthropic, advanced or backward, atheistic or religious. Philosophy, however, can only be materialist or idealist, dialectical or metaphysical. The concept of worldview is broader in scope than the correlative concept of ideology. Ideology is a system of views and ideas of a definite class or social group; it is a theoretically systematized form of the spiritual activity of society⁸. Ideology is formulated by the theoretically thinking representatives of a class. In modern society, the bearers of ideology are political parties.

Ideology permeates all forms of social consciousness. Worldview also intersects with the forms of social consciousness, absorbing “the totality of people’s scientific, philosophical, political, legal, moral, religious, aesthetic convictions and ideals”⁹. But ideology, in form, appears as a system of ideas, views, and principles, whereas worldview, while including ideas, presupposes a person’s emotional evaluation of his activity and of surrounding phenomena. In this sense, worldview is closely intertwined with social psychology, whereas ideology stands opposed to social psychology. Thus, the basic difference between ideology and worldview (for all their similarity) lies in the rational character of ideology and the emotional-rational character of worldview.

Worldview has three basic aspects: natural-scientific, humanitarian, and gnoseological¹⁰. The emotional, evaluative, axiological side of worldview can be traced both in the first and in the second aspects of worldview (in a person’s relation to nature and to society). In both aspects worldview inevitably comes into contact with social psychology.

From the standpoint of the interrelation between worldview and social psychology, of particular interest is the central problem of every worldview—

the problem of man’s place, of his purpose in the world¹¹. Being, at its foundation, a rational form of reflection of man’s natural and social environment, worldview, as an integral system of views, ideals, and attitudes, also has an emotional coloring. As A. G. Spirkin rightly emphasizes, worldview is a unity of knowledge and conviction¹². Conviction, in turn, presupposes inner experience, personal comprehension, and confidence in the rightness of the views being defended. This aspect of worldview also has a direct bearing on the problems studied by social psychology as a science.

In conclusion, let us once again stress the evaluative, emotional-rational, and synthetic nature of worldview, as well as its complex structure (in terms of its various aspects and numerous specific manifestations). The various elements of the unified structure of worldview interact in specific ways with the numerous elements of social psychology. We shall examine some manifestations of the interaction between elements of worldview and social psychology after analyzing the very concept of social psychology.

II. The Concept of Social Psychology

In speaking of social psychology, one should distinguish two different meanings of this term—ontological and gnoseological.

In the ontological sense, social psychology is that sphere of the spiritual life of society which may be called psychological relations. These relations include actions (traditions, customs, mutual stimulation of activity in a collective, etc.) and subjective experiences (feelings, moods, illusions, etc.). One may speak of the social psychology (actions and experiences) of large communities of people—the psychology of classes, nations, the psychology of an epoch¹³—of the leading, dominant mood characteristic of the majority of representatives of different nations and classes, as well as of the psychology of small collectives and professions.

World classical literature contains immense material for analyzing the psychology of nations and classes. Different nations differ in temperament (compare the fiery Cubans and Italians with the even-tempered, calm, and judicious Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians), in character, which manifests itself in national culture. Of course, the temperament and typical character of a nation appear only as a leading tendency, presupposing the existence of numerous exceptions to the rule. Moreover, under the influence of changes in social life, the character traits of a nation may change. Thus, the typical character traits of the American nation up to the twentieth century were efficiency and industriousness. However, contemporary state-monopoly capitalism has devalued the prestige of labor, and at present in the USA the pursuit of monetary success is combined with indiscriminateness in the means used to achieve success, with amoralism and the decline of the prestige of labor¹⁴.

The existence of means of mass communication (cinema, television, radio, the press) erodes differences in the psychological makeup of nations,

develops standards of behavior, ways of spending leisure time, traditions common to many modern developed nations (while class differences are preserved, although people who stand lower on the social ladder strive, in bourgeois society, to imitate the “stars” of the screen and successful millionaire businessmen).

The psychology of classes is formed under the influence of differing relations to the means of production, differing attitudes toward labor, and differences in living conditions. A vast amount of material for characterizing the social psychology of classes is contained in the works of K. Marx and V. I. Lenin¹⁵. Dominant moods may be directly opposite in one and the same epoch. There are moods highly specific to a given epoch—for example, the passion for risky and accidental means of enrichment in the epoch of primitive accumulation; for knightly valor and pilgrimage to the “holy places” in the epoch of the Crusades; for refined pleasures or, conversely, for renunciation of earthly goods in the last centuries of the Roman Empire¹⁶.

A vast body of empirical material characterizing the social psychology of various groups (a criminal gang, military personnel, a ship’s crew, adolescents on a “street corner,” drug addicts, schizophrenics, etc.) has been accumulated in the studies of bourgeois sociologist-empiricists. Works characterizing psychological relations in the production collective have also appeared in Soviet literature¹⁷.

The theoretical interpretation of the social psychology of large and small collectives, classes, nations, and epochs is contained in the categories of social psychology as a special science that has arisen at the junction between psychology and sociology. The theoretical reflection of socio-psychological relations is social psychology in the gnoseological aspect. Thus, one should distinguish two basic meanings of the term “social psychology”: social psychology as a part of social consciousness (this aspect is analyzed in all textbooks on historical materialism) and social psychology as a science. Let us consider some categories of social psychology and the definition of its subject as an independent science.

B. F. Porshnev rightly notes: “For the time being, Marxist social psychology is still a very young discipline, just getting on its feet”¹⁸, and for every young science there are characteristic not only the “goat-like leaps of youth,” a period of fermentation and accumulation of ideas, but also a vagueness of the subject and an unsettled view of the basic categories.

This is evidenced not only by the discussion on the subject of social psychology that unfolded on the pages of the journal Voprosy psikhologii in 1962–1963, but also by the animated exchange of opinions at the present time. One of the characteristic features of social psychology is that it is a science bordering on sociology and psychology. Without entering into disputes over where social psychology gravitates more—toward sociology or psychology—we shall note only that in our country two schools have taken shape in the understanding of its subject. One of them emphasizes the psychological character, the orientation—

ness of the given science, the other—the sociological aspect^23). Depending on the choice of the initial position in understanding the subject of the science, all the categories of social psychology are situated. Thus, the sociological approach to social psychology brings to the fore such categories as interest, moods, needs, illusions, customs; the psychological approach is connected with an emphasis on the categories: character, experiences, suggestion, imitation. One approach is connected with the study of the social psychology of large collectives, the other—with the study of small groups and even the social psychology of an individual personality.

It should be stipulated that the boundary between the two approaches is quite relative, and many categories of social psychology operate under both approaches.

The underdevelopment of social psychology as a science is manifested in the fact that the categories it considers have not been brought into a system, and different authors propose different variants of categories reflecting specifically socio-psychological relations. D. I. Chesnokov, speaking of the psychology of society, mentions “thoughts, moods, aspirations, mores, traditions, customs that take shape in the process of social life and reflect the social being of people”^24). Without denying the legitimacy of such an approach to defining the basic categories of social psychology, let us merely note its abstractness: the indicated relations do not exhaust socio-psychological relations in society. Moreover, mores, traditions, and customs are studied not only by social psychology, but by various branches of sociology (for example, the sociology of religion), as well as by ethnography.

A more detailed picture of socio-psychological relations is drawn by A. I. Goryacheva. Distinguishing various levels of socio-psychological relations, she calls invariant in the changing diversity of the psychic life of people’s social communities the reflection, at the sensory-emotional level, of common socially significant stimuli, and certain phenomena of the psyche and behavior characteristic of a set of people directly interacting informationally. “Accordingly, we distinguish,” writes A. I. Goryacheva, “in social psychology the psychic makeup of a definite social group—the historically formed aggregate of specific character, volitional qualities, habits, customs, traditions, stable tastes; then the emotional and unsystematized intellectual reflections, characteristic of a given community of people, of economic, production, everyday, political, and natural conditions; social needs, interests, emotions and feelings, moods, ideals, hopes, illusions; phenomena that take place only in groups of directly interacting people—fashion, rumors, panic, and so forth”^25).

The merit of the cited classification of socio-psychological relations is the clear differentiation between relations that take shape over many centuries and are stable for many generations of people—traditions, character, habits, and the like—and rapidly changing, transient relations, sometimes seeming irrational, in random—

^23) “Social psychology is psychology—that is the first thing that must be said here with complete definiteness,” B. F. Porshnev directly declares in the cited book (p. 4). The psychological aspect of social psychology is emphasized by a school headed by E. S. Kuzmina (Leningrad). B. D. Parygin insists on the sociological aspect of social psychology in the book Social Psychology as a Science, Leningrad, 1966.

^24) Collected volume Theoretical and Methodological Problems of Social Psychology, Moscow, 1966, p. 32.

^25) Problems of Social Psychology, p. 198.

... in weak or unstable collectives: panic, rumors, etc. Each of the indicated elements of social psychology interacts with worldview in its own specific way, and moods, ideals, and illusions play a special role here.

The range of categories of social psychology is constantly expanding. To the categories already named, B. F. Porshnev adds, as fundamental in his opinion, the concepts of “we” and “they,” as well as the concepts of authority, trust, shame, pride, honor, ambition, praise, encouragement, glory, censure, envy, rivalry, anger, ridicule, and others¹⁹. It is not hard to notice that among the categories listed are both individual traits of the character of the personality and categories of morality... However, the use of these concepts in socio-psychological research raises no doubt, for with their help it is possible to reflect important aspects of social psychology (in the ontological sense).

Some of the categories mentioned have long been in the arsenal of idealist social psychology in the bourgeois countries and only comparatively recently have begun to be investigated from materialist positions (the concepts of authority, prestige, and others). One may suppose that the number of categories of social psychology (in the gnoseological sense) will increase, including through the critical assimilation of the experience of bourgeois social psychology and sociology (the categories of status, role, anomie, or behavior deviating from the norm, etc.).

An unresolved theoretical problem that is holding back the development of social psychology is the definition of the subject matter of this science. Without claiming to solve this urgent problem, over which lances are being broken (and, evidently, will continue to be broken for a long time), we shall conduct a comparative analysis of the main points of view on the subject of social psychology in Soviet and American literature.

The decisive difference between the Marxist and the bourgeois interpretation of the subject of social psychology lies in the fundamentally different resolution of the basic question of sociology. Bourgeois social psychologists hypertrophy the role of social psychology in the life of society, which leads to the “imperialist designs” of the science of “social psychology,” to attempts to psychologize all social relations, to replace sociology with social psychology. This tendency of bourgeois social psychology has received well-argued criticism from Marxist sociologists (the works of Yu. A. Zamoshkin, G. K. Ashin, N. V. Novikov, G. M. Andreeva, and others).

Without denying the influence of the psychological factor on all aspects of social life, Marxist sociologists and psychologists, following the traditions laid down in the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, recognize the decisive role of material, economic relations in the life of society. Much work has recently been done to eliminate simplified notions of the role of social psychology in social life. In this connection there has been a return to the ideas of G. V. Plekhanov, who assigned social psychology a prominent place in the structure of social relations. As is known, G. V. Plekhanov distinguished five basic elements of the structure of society: “the given degree of development of the productive forces; the mutual relations of people in the process of social production, determined by this degree of development; the form of society expressing these relations of people; a definite state of spirit and morals corresponding to this form of society; religion, philosophy, literature, art, corresponding to the capacities, tendencies of taste, and inclinations generated by this

state”^27). From this scheme, intended to express the causal connection between the mode of production, the political organization of society, social psychology, and the forms of social consciousness, it is evident that social psychology occupies an intermediate position between economics and politics, on the one hand, and ideology, on the other. At the same time Plekhanov rightly emphasized: “In order to understand the history of scientific thought or the history of art in a given country, it is not enough to know its economy. One must be able to pass from the economy to social psychology, without a careful study and understanding of which a materialist explanation of the history of ideology is impossible”^28).

In the literature of recent years, the enormous and specific role of social psychology in the life of society as a whole and in the functioning of individual collectives in particular has been unanimously noted. In this connection, the necessity of intensive work in a special field of knowledge that would study social psychology raises no doubts. What remains debatable is the question of what social psychology studies.

The most frequently encountered shortcoming in defining the subject of social psychology is the simple ascertainment of the objects of study, the enumeration of the categories of social psychology. This is explained above all by the absence of qualified and comprehensive concrete research in the field of social psychology, by the youth of the science itself. Finally, the dispute concerns what is the object of study—collectives, the relations of personalities to one another in a collective, or the psychology of the individual personality.

D. I. Chesnokov believes that social psychology studies the relations of personalities to one another in a definite collective and to collectives^29). V. N. Kolbanovskii considers that “the subject of social psychology is the study of the laws of psychic activity in various social groups or collectives, as well as among the masses of the population”^30). B. F. Porshnev likewise places emphasis on the specific features of psychic activity in a collective, in a mass human environment, “as distinct from the psychic functions of the individual in relative solitude or in his relations to other individuals”^31). Finally, B. D. Parygin takes a compromise position: “The subject of social psychology should be considered to be both the specific features of group, collective, and mass psychology, manifested in the aggregate activity of people, their joint behavior, experiences, and ways of psychological communication with one another, and the specific features of the behavior and psychic state of the individual in the group, collective, and mass”^32).

In our view, those are more correct who consider the laws of psychic activity in large collectives to be the object of study of social psychology.

A characteristic feature of the views of bourgeois scholars on the subject of social psychology is the motley variety of positions, initial principles, and categories introduced into the science of “social psychology.”

In one way or another, Freudian ideas, behaviorism, and interactionism are intertwined.

Behaviorism proceeds from the premise that the essence of man is manifested in his external behavior. The subject of social psychology for behavior—

^27) G. V. Plekhanov. Selected Philosophical Works. Vol. II, Moscow, 1956, p. 171.
^28) Ibid., p. 247.
^29) D. I. Chesnokov. Social psychology and sociology. In: Theoretical and Methodological Problems of Social Psychology, p. 35.
^30) Problems of Social Psychology, p. 143.
^31) B. F. Porshnev, cited work, p. 6.
^32) B. D. Parygin. What Is Social Psychology? Leningrad, 1965, p. 28.

behaviorist—human behavior manifested in external actions^33).

Freudianism in social psychology is not at present represented in its pure form; however, the idea of a conflict between man’s blind instinctive needs and the goals of society, which controls and suppresses these needs, is supported by many social psychologists. Frumkin, in the article “Social Psychology” included in the book Contemporary Sociology (1958), rightly notes that the Freudian and behaviorist conceptions of man and society are, in essence, irrational and biological^34).

The conception of interactionism may be formulated briefly as follows: personality and society are products of social interaction. But interaction itself is an extremely general and vague category. Hence the vagueness of the definitions of the subject matter of social psychology given in many textbooks. Thus, E. Bogardus believed that social psychology “treats the processes of intersocial stimuli and responses”^35). T. Newcomb emphasizes: “The process and results of interaction actually constitute the subject matter of social psychology”; at the same time, social psychology is called upon to help solve many practical problems that arise in the interaction of people^36). Fairchild defined the subject matter of social psychology still more indefinitely, singling out “the study of man and his social environment in their relation to each other”^37). G. Allport placed at the center of the problems of social psychology the nature of the individual personality. “The center of interest of social psychology lies in the social nature of the individual personality”^38).

Newcomb, however, correcting Allport, holds that the social psychologist studies the behavior of a person as a member of a group, as well as the behavior of people as members of a group.

Similarly, Sargent and Williamson say that social psychology is concerned with individual behavior that affects, and is affected by, the behavior of others^39). Here behaviorism and interactionism are closely intertwined with the conception of individual psychology.

Thus, the pivots around which the interests of social psychologists in the USA are grouped are personality and the group. Closely linked with the categories “personality” and “group” are the concepts “self” and “generalized other,” introduced by G. H. Mead. The term “personality” is used by R. Linton to denote individual qualities: “It is the sum of inner rational capacities, representations, ideas, habits, and definite emotional response-feelings”^40). The personality, having passed through the individual stage of development, enters a socialized phase, and here, interacting with primary groups (a children’s play group, a school group, etc.), becomes a “social self,” acquires status, and performs various roles. The “generalized other” also appears as organized society or social groups.

^33) Contemporary Sociology, edited by Joseph S. Roucek, New-York, 1958, p. 270.
^34) Ibid., p. 274.
^35) E. Bogardus. Fundamentals of Social Psychology, N.-J. and London, 1924, p. 3.
^36) T. Newcomb. Social Psychology, L., 1952, pp. 6, 7.
^37) Cited from the indicated book, p. 26.
^38) Ibid., p. 24.
^39) S. S. Sargent and R. C. Williamson. Social Psychology, New-York, 1958, p. 16.
^40) Contemporary Sociological Theory, edited by E. Borgatta and H. Meyer, New-York, 1956, p. 104.

The concept of “group” is no less subjective than the concepts of personality, status, and roles. The basic defect here consists in a purely quantitative and phenomenological description of groups: a group is a family of three people (a triad, according to Simmel), a football team, a neighborhood, a nation, and, finally, all humanity (a world group, according to Bogardus). “A group is a number of individuals united for definite purposes”²⁰. By discarding the qualitative specificity of social communities of people, and by distinguishing temporary, permanent, formal, and informal groups, social psychology in the USA and other bourgeois countries erases the specificity of nations, classes, and production collectives, and remains at the positivist “micro-level” of analysis of social structure.

An ineradicable defect of social psychology in the USA remains, to this day, the introduction of such categories as human nature and instincts. Thus Bogardus distinguished the physical basis of human nature (reflexes as mechanisms of responses to stimuli from the external environment), affects (feelings, impressions, desires), and an active and cognitive nature (hunger, pleasure, suffering, fear, sympathy, tranquility, regret, delight, jealousy, hatred, and love, on the one hand, and desires for wealth, new experience, and security, on the other). Bogardus included memory, thinking, and learning in cognitive nature. Finally, he distinguished the social nature of man, which includes sympathies and such feelings as indignation, ambition, vanity, the cult of heroes, the sense of justice, and so forth.

As we see, what is mixed together here are both traits of the character of an individual personality, studied by individual psychology, and the physical characteristics of the human organism. But the main shortcoming of the entire conception of abstract human nature does not lie in this.

The point is that Bogardus and other social psychologists invariably identify human nature with the qualities of personality inherent in the individual of bourgeois society, while the vices of the acquisitive bourgeois are transferred to human nature in general.

Without going into a further analysis of the categories of social psychology that constitute the basis of this science in the USA, let us note only the fundamentally important concepts, such as leadership, authority, suggestion, imitation, and socialization. Empirical research into social relations, based on the analysis of the categories cited, is conducted by hundreds of researchers; the results of these studies are presented both in monographic studies and in periodical literature.

Ultimately, one must acknowledge the colossal disproportion between the scope, organization, and methodology of concrete social-psychological research in the countries of Western Europe and the USA, and the theoretical foundations of social psychology, which rest on the metaphysical and subjective-idealistic schemes of the founders of this science (E. Ross, E. Bogardus, McDougall, Sumner, Cooley, Le Bon, Tarde).

While rejecting the unscientific methodological foundations of bourgeois social psychology, it is necessary critically to analyze concrete studies, methodology, and the choice of problems, assimilating everything positive in the formulation of problems²¹.

III. The Interaction of Worldview and Social Psychology

The methodological basis for resolving the question of the relationship between worldview and social psychology is the proposition of Marxist gnoseology concerning the unity of the sensory and the rational in cognition.

Worldview is a synthetic, integral reflection of reality, of the world of nature and society in theoretical, categorial form. Social psychology reflects reality, above all the relationships within a collective, in emotional form. Worldview accumulates the initial principles of a person’s relation to nature, society, oneself, and one’s own cognition, relying on the data of the natural and social sciences. Social psychology accumulates the experiences, moods, traditions, and habits of groups, classes, nations, and large and small communities of people. Worldview gravitates toward philosophy; social psychology, toward psychology.

Worldview is predominantly abstract, logically grounded, and relatively stable; social psychology is outwardly irrational, impulsive, changeable, and manifests itself in a crudely tangible way—in the behavior of an individual person and of a collective.

In the final analysis, worldview appears as a rational form, and social psychology as an emotional, sensory form of reflection of social being. In this is manifested the difference between worldview and social psychology. But with all the difference between worldview and social psychology there is a profound unity.

Logically grounded in theoretical and abstract form, worldview appears only as a tendency, as the worldview of a class, an epoch, and humanity as a whole. At the level of behavior and the mutual relations of individual individuals, worldview has an emotional coloring; it is closely connected with actions, experiences, motives of activity, moods, and the psychological assessment of events and, consequently, is intertwined with social psychology.

Further, one must take into account the levels of development of worldview itself among representatives of different classes in different social formations.

In antagonistic formations (with the exception of developed capitalism), worldview appeared in theoretical form only among the exploiting classes, who had their ideologists in the person of philosophers, scholars, and political figures. The reflection of reality among the exploited was hindered by the absence or insufficiency of education and literacy. Therefore the worldview of the exploited—slaves, serf peasants, and wage workers (before the appearance of the first socialist doctrines)—did not take shape as a coherent and completed system of views and, at best, reflected a world-sensation imposed by the exploiters primarily through religious ideas. Thus, the exploited masses throughout slave-owning, feudal, and, to a considerable extent, bourgeois society did not have an integral worldview. Here, too, social psychology came to the fore: moods of oppression, pessimism, elemental dissatisfaction and hatred, as well as ghostly hopes and dreams of a brighter future. Only in developed bourgeois society does the proletariat, in the person of the advanced representatives of the class, acquire a logically closed and coherent system of views. In social consciousness there occurs a shift from the sphere of social psychology to the sphere of worldview.

However, even in socialist society, when the basis of the scientific worldview is inseparably Marxism-Leninism, far from all members of society assimilate to the same degree and at the same level—

... master, absorb, and develop a scientific worldview. The process of forming a scientific worldview among all members of society takes an entire epoch, the epoch of transition from a developed socialist society to developed communism. And here one can observe a complex range of interrelations between worldview and social psychology, beginning with the everyday worldview, into which elements of the scientific worldview penetrate, and extending to the worldview of the advanced members of society who have assimilated Marxist theory in its full scope.

Finally, one must not disregard the various types of worldview. As A. G. Spirkin rightly notes²², a worldview may be idealistic or materialistic, atheistic or religious, everyday or scientific. Each type of worldview interacts with social psychology in a specific way. Thus, the everyday worldview (views of the surrounding world that are not fertilized by science or, in Engels’s words, do not go beyond the four walls of domestic life) is closely intertwined with social psychology. At the same time, different elements of social psychology affect worldview unequally. At the level of the everyday worldview, such an element of social psychology as rumors exerts a great influence. It is clear that a scientific worldview cannot be based on such an ephemeral formation of social psychology.

In the complex whole that constitutes the unity of the everyday worldview and social psychology, the emotional rather than the conceptual aspect predominates. The leading role of social psychology is manifested here in that form of concrete-imagistic thinking which has been called stereotypes²³.

Concrete-imagistic thinking, suggestible faith, illusions, and a complex range of feelings manifest themselves in the everyday worldview under the influence of religious ideology. The psychology of believers in our country is being studied by a group of scholars headed by L. M. Ugrinovich. However, the religious worldview of ordinary believers, the penetration into it of secular elements, and the worldview of that group of the population usually called the wavering (those who have not definitively departed from religion but who no longer recognize many dogmas and rites of the church) have so far been studied very poorly.

The influence of elements of social psychology on the worldview of the scholar is considerably weaker. Yet here, too, social psychology should not be disregarded. Thus, a scientific discovery or a profound truth gives the scholar an emotional experience (the joy of discovery, disinterested love of truth).

Thus, the interconnection between worldview and social psychology can be traced in the analysis of different types of worldview and at different levels of worldview. It should be emphasized that the interaction here is reciprocal: worldview influences social psychology and, conversely, social psychology acts upon worldview. Since there is still no clear description of all the elements that make up the structure of worldview and social psychology, it is difficult to speak of the mutual penetration and interaction of each of these elements of worldview with the elements of the structure of social psy-

psychology, and vice versa. Progress in this respect is possible through the application of graph theory^45) to the structural analysis of social consciousness and the elements that make it up.

Let us consider some aspects of the influence of social psychology on a developed worldview.

The influence of social psychology on a worldview should be taken into account in the process of developing and forming a worldview under the influence of instruction and education (the study of philosophy and the sciences, the impact on the individual of such means of propaganda as the press, radio, and television). Thus, lectures on philosophy, despite the abstractness of the science itself, should be conducted not only at a high theoretical level; in order to arouse interest in the science, lectures must be emotionally rich, i.e., must influence not only reason but also feelings. In the practice of propaganda work, one should take into account the psychology of the personality, the particular features of the psychology of age groups, the level of education, and the professional composition of the audience. For example, it is known that the psychology of adolescents is marked by a certain negativism and skepticism (often ostentatious). Greedily absorbing knowledge, the adolescent takes a critical attitude toward general phrases, unsubstantiated propositions, and trite truths that are repeated many times but do not evoke a positive emotional reaction. On the contrary, in some cases negative emotional reactions arise, an unwillingness to perceive the information, a kind of psychological protest.

A poorly and boringly delivered lecture on socio-political topics, radio broadcasts and a newspaper article that do not have an emotional impact, and the propagandist’s phrases that contain no new and reliable information, evoke boredom, psychological protest, and can objectively harm the cause of forming conviction.

Bourgeois sociologists write of a “boomerang effect” encountered in the practice of mass suggestion by means of mass communication, when an effect is achieved opposite to the expected one. Thus, R. Merton described the reactions of viewers to films showing the atrocities of the fascists during the Second World War: in some viewers the sadism of the fascists aroused aggressive feelings^46). It is recommended that radio propaganda employ means that influence listeners emotionally (warmth of tone, different shades of one and the same thought, intonations of the voice), for frequent repetition in propaganda leads to boredom and even irritation among listeners^47). And he is, of course, right.

A scientific worldview, formed on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and having become a deep inner conviction of the individual, is closely connected with positive social emotions: a profound faith in the triumph of the cause of communism, an optimistic sense of the world, sympathy and compassion for the oppressed and hatred for the exploiters, intolerance of falsehood, self-interest, and careerism. The worldview cultivated in contemporary capitalist society is not only based on the principles of individualism and acquisitiveness, but itself also experiences pressure from the base passions of the bourgeois. Thus, Yu. A. Zamoshkin rightly notes: “Between bourgeois sociolo-

^45) On graph theory see: K. Berge, Teoriya grafov i ee primeneniya [Graph Theory and Its Applications], Moscow, 1962. Examples of the use of graphs in social research are contained in the book Kolichetstvennye metody v sotsiologii [Quantitative Methods in Sociology], Moscow, 1966.

^46) R. K. Merton. The Social Theory and Social Structure, Glencoe, 1957, pp. 517–524. “Under certain conditions people respond to propaganda in a way opposite to that intended by the author,” Merton notes (ibid., p. 519).

^47) R. K. Merton. Masspersuasion. The Social Psychology of a Bond Drive, N.-Y. and London, 1946, p. 134.

...theory and social philosophy, on the one hand, and the spontaneous moods of fright, loneliness, helplessness, etc., that arise in the bourgeois individual under the direct influence of capitalist reality, on the other, there exists a distinctive interconnection and interdependence. Social theory and philosophy, as it were, elevate these spontaneous moods into a more or less integral system of concepts and ideas, create generalized logical constructions and worldview schemas, which then in turn help to consolidate spontaneous moods in people’s consciousness. Irrational elements in the psychology and behavior of the confused and floundering bourgeois philistine are transformed into philosophical “theoretical” doctrines of irrationalism, skepticism, and even outright mysticism²⁴.

Philosophy as an “insoluble sediment,” the skeleton of a worldview, is influenced by social psychology in another respect as well. What is at issue is the philosophical tradition of each country. Thus, the traditions of empiricism characterize the systems of materialism and idealism in England; in the philosophy of Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the idealist traditions stemming from Kant and Fichte are exceedingly strong. The traditions of competition and free enterprise that arose in the bourgeois economy are now maintained in philosophy. “Bourgeois philosophy is an enterprise based on competition operating within certain limits. You may be a pragmatist or a positivist, a neorealist or a naïve, critical, or Cambridge realist, a monistic idealist or a pluralistic idealist, an existentialist or any other kind of -ist...,” the progressive American philosopher Barrows Dunham writes ironically²⁵.

In the worldview of the contemporary natural scientist in the West, materialist traditions coming from natural science are intertwined with idealist traditions suggested by bourgeois philosophy. One may agree with M. M. Abrashev, who noted: “Often people try to characterize a scientist’s worldview by his consciously held philosophical propositions. Such an approach is not entirely satisfactory, because philosophical statements may contradict the actual worldview of natural scientists. Thus, certain philosophical propositions of Ch. Darwin, A. Einstein, and N. Wiener are metaphysical, while in their worldview as a whole these scientists are natural-historical and spontaneous dialecticians”²⁶.

The examples given are sufficient to show the undeniable connection between such an abstract-rational element of worldview as philosophy and the various elements of social psychology.

The interconnection between social psychology and such elements of worldview as moral, aesthetic, and political ideas and ideals is more obvious²⁷ and is not analyzed in this article.

We have limited ourselves only to a brief examination of the interconnection between various aspects of social psychology and worldview. But even the relations considered make it possible to draw a conclusion about the need for a detailed—

… and concrete analysis both of the very structure of worldview and social psychology and of their mutual connection. The path of investigating the dependence of the various elements of social consciousness as a complex system with numerous subsystems is, in our view, highly fruitful. Along this path it is also possible to arrive at practical recommendations that will promote a scientific approach to the formation of a communist worldview among all members of our society.

1. Program of the CPSU, Pravda Publishing House, Moscow, 1961, p. 118. ↩

2. See: The Logic of Scientific Research, Moscow, “Nauka,” 1965, p. 318. Here and below we refer to the substantive Chapter XII, written by V. F. Chernovolenko. ↩

3. Cited work, p. 317. ↩

4. K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 20, p. 8. ↩

5. See in more detail V. A. Yadov’s book Ideology as a Form of the Spiritual Activity of Society, pp. 6–9. ↩

6. Fundamentals of Marxist Philosophy, Moscow, 1958, pp. 3, 4. ↩

7. P. V. Kopnin, Dialectics as Logic, Kiev, 1961, p. 32. ↩

8. See: V. A. Yadov, cited work, pp. 21, 23. ↩

9. See: A. Spirkin, “Worldview,” Philosophical Encyclopedia, vol. 3, Moscow, 1964, p. 454. ↩

10. See: The Logic of Scientific Research, pp. 323–324. ↩

11. Sometimes people write about man’s place in “this world,” as if there existed some other, “different” world besides “this” one! ↩

12. A. G. Spirkin, A Course in Marxist Philosophy, Moscow, 1963, p. 8. ↩

13. For example, I. Ehrenburg, in his memoirs, wrote about the psychology of the epoch between the two world wars: “After the First World War the psyche of people changed. They were delighted by the cheap attractions of Broadway, the most stupid of American films, detective novels. The increasing complexity of technology went hand in hand with the simplification of the inner world” (I. Ehrenburg, People, Years, Life, “Novyi mir,” 1961, No. 10). ↩

14. For more detail see: Yu. A. Zamoshkin, The Crisis of Bourgeois Individualism and the Individual. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1966, pp. 217–223. ↩

15. See in more detail the articles by B. D. Parygin and V. N. Kolbanovsky in the book Problems of Social Psychology, as well as B. F. Porshnev’s book Social Psychology and History. ↩

16. B. F. Porshnev, Social Psychology and History, p. 113. ↩

17. See, for example, B. V. Olshansky’s article “Personality and Social Values” in the collection Sociology in the USSR, vol. 1, Moscow, 1966, pp. 470–530. ↩

18. B. F. Porshnev, cited book, p. 7. ↩

19. B. F. Porshnev, cited work, pp. 80, 141, 151–156. ↩

20. E. Bogardus. Fundamentals of Social Psychology. ↩

21. An example of a critical analysis and generalization of problems studied by bourgeois social psychologists is Yu. A. Zamoshkin’s book The Crisis of Bourgeois Individualism and Personality (Moscow, “Nauka,” 1966). N. S. Mansurov’s book Contemporary Bourgeois Psychology. Critical Essays (Moscow, 1962, pp. 132–174) contains a superficial analysis of some tendencies in contemporary social psychology abroad. ↩

22. A. Spirkin, “Worldview,” Philosophical Encyclopedia, vol. 3, p. 454. ↩

23. The concept of the stereotype was first studied by W. Lippmann. Criticism of an idealistic understanding of stereotypes is contained in V. A. Yadov’s book Ideology as a Form of the Spiritual Activity of Society (pp. 65–73). At the same time, one cannot deny the influence of stereotypes (sensory images in consciousness) on behavior, on the guiding orientation in actions. I. S. Kon, for example, notes the connection between stereotypes and ethnic prejudices (see: I. S. Kon, “The Psychology of Prejudices,” Novyi mir, 1966, no. 9). ↩

24. Yu. A. Zamoshkin. The Crisis of Bourgeois Individualism and the Personality, p. 312. ↩

25. B. Dunham. Thinkers and Treasurers. Moscow, 1960, p. 50. “The limits beyond which the bourgeois philosopher cannot go,” Dunham observes, “are medieval philosophy and the philosophy of Marxism—the twelfth and the twenty-first centuries.” ↩

26. “Lenin’s Theory of Reflection and Contemporary Science,” Moscow, 1966, p. 354. ↩

27. The interconnection between art and worldview is analyzed by S. S. Goldentrikht (See: collection The Interaction of Forms of Social Consciousness, Moscow, Moscow State University Press, 1964). However, the author confines himself to the political aspect of the problem, and by worldview understands political, philosophical, moral, and aesthetic views (cited work, p. 161). ↩