ABSTRACT
In the general history of psychology, Bartlett’s work has suffered a similar fate to that of Wundt in that it has mainly been his experimental cognitive psychology that has been widely acknowledged; the fact that with his social psychology he attempted to develop a systematic study of social bases of cognition has attracted far less attention. After a long period of neglect, occasioned at least in part by the widely established view of Bartlett as a founder of cognitive psychology (which is generally taken as asocial), it is only very recently that his social psychological studies have begun to be scrutinised (e.g. Costall, 1991, 1992; Edwards & Middleton, 1987; Middleton & Edwards, 1990b; Rosa, 1996; Saito, 1994, 1996a; Shorter, 1990). Although these recent studies have done much to highlight Bartlett’s extensive concern with social bases of cognition, few attend to what I find to be one of its most distinguishing features, namely that taken in its entirety his approach countenances multilevel analyses of social bases of cognition.
