The Mechanistic Worldview in Social Psychology

Topic: Psychology and Personality
Words: 301 Pages: 1
Table of Contents

Introduction

Worldview is a complex mechanism that consists of a system of values of a particular person and his ideas about the world. This structure of the psyche combines the opinions, actions, and ethical norms acceptable to a particular person. Brandt and Crawford (2020) state, “Many perspectives in social psychology assume that people are motivated to protect the validity and vitality of their views.” Having considered all three discussed worldviews, I realized that I relate most of all to the mechanistic worldview.

Discussion

Mechanistic structure theory “asserts the existence of a basic level of pure elements (behaviors, neurons, genes) that combine additively to create wholes” (Liben, 2008). The mechanistic worldview presupposes the reduction of the complex to the simple, which, in this case, is considered a substratum of the properties inherent in the complex whole. The reduction of qualitative differences to quantitative ones was taken as the main explanatory principle by the majority of supporters of both empiricism and rationalism, not only by philosophers but also by natural scientists. The mechanistic worldview, of course, cannot reveal the self-movement of matter since this requires an investigation of the mutual transformation of qualitatively different forms of the motion of matter.

Conclusion

The metaphysical way of thinking corresponded to the social needs of that historical epoch, needs that could only be adequately expressed by the bourgeoisie. It methodologically substantiated the bourgeois ideology and, in turn, was based on it. Karl Marx, systematically criticizing the metaphysical limitations of bourgeois political economy, constantly pointed out that political economy as a science was created precisely within the framework of bourgeois ideology. It was Marx’s political ideology that surprised me the most because it offers something unusual and new. This is unlikely to be implemented in practice, but as an ideology, it is very strong in its theses.

References

Brandt, M. J., & Crawford, J. T. (2020). Worldview conflict and prejudice. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 61, pp. 1-66). Academic Press.

Liben S. L. (2008). Continuities and Discontinuities in Children and Scholarship. Child Development. 79(6). The Pennsylvania State University

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