It is difficult to resist comparing progress in social psychological
explanation with that in the natural sciences. Few social psychologists
would agree that their work has resulted in the same accumulation of
predictive successes and coherent theory as has occurred in fields such
as physics, chemistry, or biology. As for comparing the success of
social psychology with other subfields of psychology such as person-
ality, behavior theory, or developmental psychology, they are all so
integrally related that the result may not be worth the effort.

There are at least two levels at which dissatisfaction with the pace of
progress in social psychology has occurred during the years since
World War II. At the empirical level, methodological issues of the sort
contained under the rubric of artifacts in experimental design is one
such set of problems, and the place of the experiment itself as the
principal tool in developing social psychological theory is the principle
problem at the epistemological level. Both levels are addressed
throughout the course of this book.

There has always been a controversy surrounding the use of objec-
tive methods, particularly the scientific experiment, in answering
questions about complex human processes such as social interaction
and, in the past, consciousness itself, however defined (e.g., James,
1962; Lashley, 1923). As early as 1890 William James was wary of the
use of experiments to explain complex human behavior. He believed
that the deterministic assumption, best served by experimental analy-
sis, is merely provisional and methodological and that the assumption
of determinism is therefore open to discussion on a level other than the
scientific. He understood that a psychologist who wishes to build a
science must at least tacitly take the deterministic position. However,

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