ABSTRACT

Observation of single subjects in relation to narrowly defined situations had led easily to a variety of interpretations which laid stress on the individual, the structural, and contemporary. One of the consequences of the lively experimental investigations of workers trained in the methods of the physical sciences has been the recognition that such distinctions are not only difficult to draw but may not be of primary importance. The progression to this position may be traced over the same decades which saw changes from an individualistic to a social interpretation in the case of the intentions, urges or purposes to which appeal was made in the attempt to describe the reasons for human beings behaving as they do. Perception is patterned by both personal experience and socio-cultural pressures; and on this in turn it has proved possible to build what has been described as a phenomenological approach to social psychology.