Review of An Introduction to Social Psychology by C. A. Ellwood
Margaret Floy Washburn
An Introduction to Social Psychology. By CHARLES A. ELLWOOD. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1917.— pp. 343.
Professor Ellwood states in his preface that this book is "a simplification and systematization of the theories presented"in his Sociology in its Scientific Aspects. Those who are familiar with his writings will, recall that his point of view is that of the functional psychology of Angell. He is definitely opposed to behaviorism, and has no fear of the concept of consciousness. Mechanism in his opinion has yet to demonstrate its validity for psychic and social processes: "we cannot understand such a thing as value apart from consciousness." A society he would define, not in any purely objective terms, but as "any group of individuals who carry on a common life by means of mental interaction." "Sympathetic introspection" is to him, "after deduction from ascertained laws and principles of psychology, probably our chief instrument at the present time for the psychological
( 197) analysis of existing social life." Professor Ellwood's conception of the function of consciousness is the orthodox functional one that consciousness secures the adaptation of behavior at times of change.