Gatekeeping the discipline: Re-entering 'Social Psychology as History'

REVISED PROOF Journal : Large 12646 Article No : 847 Pages : 7MS Code : 847 Dispatch : 13-11-2025 Vol.:(0123456789) Psychol Stud https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-025-00847-0 REFLECTIONS Gatekeeping thediscipline: Re-entering ‘Social Psychology asHistory’ ChetanSinha1  Accepted: 31 July 2025 © The Author(s) under exclusive licence to National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India 2025 possibly shaping formal social psychology. For example, one is from the perspective of Western modernity, where science, industries and expansions of the economy were paramount. Another can be from the colonized gaze adopted by the privileged groups for the local alters. This may generate a critical response against the anchoring of colonialization by the powerful who govern and regulate through the enaction of colonial rule, covering it with notions of post-colonial modernity. A third trajectory largely focuses on the local point of view in its diversity of perceptions and hierarchies. The emergence of groups from oppressed and marginalized sections within the cultural system forms a new social psychology catering to the need for liberation from everyday oppression, colonialism, socio-economic blockages and toxic change. These groups assimilate an idea of India free from colonialism which deprives one of the cultural roots, self and identity. There were internal discriminations rampantly on display in the micro-behaviour and in some cases open disregard for the humanity of the disadvantaged. The emergence of Ambedkar as a leader of reform and modernity himself belonged to the oppressed group. His approach was an "annihilation of caste"(Ambedkar, 1990) that has occupied the psychology of people. This form of resistance emerged in modernity with the clear address of the social categories. The shaping of the psychology of minorities and the oppressed for liberation and self-respect derived its strength from the resistance and collective movements. Their approach is a marker of local or desi, wherein one group was on the verge of losing the cultural self and the other looking forward to dignity and respect. In some way, the latter find modernity as a space to get out from the superstitious, rigid categorization and ascriptions. Despite the problem of cultural cliches, dehumanization and prejudices, their approach was/is a systematic rejection of the imposed. Abstract Social psychology in India formally adopted a systematic approach aligned with Western understandings of human social relationships. Bringing a modern and traditional approach to constructing the history of social psychology was the major agenda. Even in the so-called tradition, modernity was observed in the new philosophies and heterodox systems. The superiority of the dominant blocked the critical approach towards understanding the objects that were taken for granted. Experimental Social psychology was the result of modernity, and its categories are usually taken as unmalleable, since without understanding the meanings of categories in their original form, it may be difficult to experimentally test the hypothesis or apply any statistical analysis. This helps in generating experimental designs or conducting surveys in order to propose models and theories. The trajectory of doing social psychology depends upon how it fits into the systems prevalent, appreciated, or dominant. Keywords Gatekeeping· History· India· Modernity· Social constructionism· Social psychology The context of the development of the discipline in the Western enlightenment and world wars is different from the time of Bhakti, freedom struggles and minority oppression within the cultural–geographical boundaries in the global south. Social psychology looks for varieties of contexts that impact interactions, groups process and social relationships;thus, there are different ways of seeing modernity, * Chetan Sinha sinche[email protected] 1 OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat-Narela Road, Sonipat, Haryana131001, India 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 A1 A2 A3 A4 REVISED PROOF Journal : Large 12646 Article No : 847 Pages : 7MS Code : 847 Dispatch : 13-11-2025 Psychol Stud The seminal article of Gergen (1973) situated the development of social psychology in history and culminated both as reciprocal disciplines, one is incomplete without the other. History consists of both documented and undocumented time phases,it is a composition of memories, everyday affairs, emotions, discourses, etc. The way historians document the history of certain eras and social psychology departs from that approach and constructs knowledge in the present, depleting or facilitating the history of social categories. In integrating social psychology and history, which is already embedded, provided how the researcher systematizes it, the methodology may also shift depending on how the researcher recalls the past and sees it in the present. The social construction of history reflects the psychology of everyday life constructed in power relations. The development of social psychology in India derived its energy from the culmination of Western and Indian, depending upon the training and enthusiasm of scholars (e.g. Jahanbegloo & Kakar, 2009; Misra etal., 2021; Nandy, 2011; Pandey, 2021; Singh, 2009; Vindhya, 2003). Literature and scripture were also involved in constructing and testing a hypothesis. It was a wonderful display of West–East psychology, with the Western ways constantly governing. It always appears in some way or another despite the social psychologists’ struggle with the paradoxes emerging due to cultural roots and modern training. That is why the culture was modernized and an apt aura of modernity in tradition and tradition in modernity was circulated. Things were connected, and this link resulted from people working in journalism, allied disciplines in social science, science departments, etc. The mixed emotions of love, humiliation, pride, anger, etc., were seen in the working of social psychologists. It was the platform of reverberations of ideologies representing the conditioning of the protagonists and social psychology enthusiasts. In this clash of ideas, it was important to find an identity and communicate well with the interested fellows of social psychology. Devotion, Academia andModernity The emotion of devotion derives from understanding the social context, which also shaped the disciplinary selves of social psychologists in India. Critical thinking was selfdirected and influenced by the collective institutions and society, as a persona of prejudgment that determines one’s destiny. The interplay of devotion and criticism circumambulate the idea of social psychology. Disciplinary development is achieved by selecting a research topic, including the research area, developing a theoretical model, discussing social categories, incorporating demographics, designing the research agenda, and positioning oneself within academia. The worldview weaved around us needs to be revisited. It can lead to homogenized thinking and overlook the idea of collectivity, diversity and the intersection of social identities. The devotion shaping the doing of social psychology needed a gatekeeper who balances the varieties of devotions. Social psychology reflects the researcher’s interest in doing and understanding interrelationships, group dynamics or individuals as social beings. It thus also reflects the people in some ‘state of affairs’. The roots of devotion construct the reality of social psychology. Bhakti is all-encompassing and has roots in karma and Saguna (positive attributes) (e.g. Bryant, 2017). The layout of the Indian society and the embedded cultural values seem to result from them. However, it does not entitle the rebels who took different vantage to contribute to the social psychology. They were more positioned as a pagan of discipline, as someone doing a surgical strike to the established edifice of social psychology. It was the move seen as divergent and critical to pure devotion. Social psychology in India was predominantly a scientific endeavour moving on the standard pathways of doing and enhancing the theoretical explanation of any phenomenon. It followed the pure path of falsification and completely refraining from the pseudoscientific appropriation of social reality. Constructing social reality was not the interest of social psychologists; instead, they were more driven by the social construction of reality. Earlier, the reality was seen through the application of sophisticated methodologies. Currently, it is a kind of integration, and reality is observed to be constructed and social. Overall, the agenda of looking forward to the facts and exactness of human social behaviour shifted and the reality of social behaviour is seen as evanescent, changing and accelerated in the context of rapid industrialization and development. The introduction of social constructionism to the metatheory of doing social psychology gave a blow to the established order of doing and speaking social psychology. The Bhakti (devotion) was remodelled, and social psychology’s terrain or work field expanded. The authoritative work of Durganand Sinha (2015) motivated the direction of devotion towards nation development and the emancipation of both psychology as a discipline, contributing to the status of India as a nation. The social constructionist movement in India is neither final nor seamless; it needs metatheory to revisit and modify the meaning of doing social psychology not to know the people but for the people. Malleability ofSocial Psychology Indian social psychology was as progressive as it was reduced to rituals, duties and desires. Gergen’s (1973) ‘Social Psychology as History’ is one of the most preferred texts of reference among Indian social psychologists. Its salvaging influence in reshaping the doing of social psychology 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 REVISED PROOF Journal : Large 12646 Article No : 847 Pages : 7MS Code : 847 Dispatch : 13-11-2025 Psychol Stud opened the door to understanding different social phenomena and issues. It gave freedom and hope to connect with the grounded reality and to some extent with the roots which seemed restricted by the dominant ways of doing social psychology across the world. Though with the changing times, the rise of technologies, needs and desires, anxieties and neo-liberalization of self, this article needs to be revisited in contemporary times. Both social psychology and history stand on the anvil of time. However, the metatheories’ positioning may differ; hence, the need arises to understand social psychology and history through the lens that suits their purpose. Reifying the categories may lose the future avenues for exploration and understanding. A discourse on tradition is needed and not the forced imposition. Gergen (2009) expressed how any tradition bring injury to people and expressed consideration to generate new alternatives (p. 165). He further stated that, “while disciplines using mental explanations can make an important contribution to society, we should not embrace them as final authorities” (p. 165). Streamlining the agenda of disciplinary development of social psychology was both the modernity of desires and the spirituality of traditions. Different terrains of thoughts and political constructions shape the social reality of psychology in India (Pandey, 1988; Dalal & Misra, 2001; Pandey & Singh, 2005; Pandey, 1981; Sinha, 1990; Sinha, 2019). The inclusion of articles in prominent journals, choice of the courses in the university, participation of academia in the movement to save culture, creation of factions in the same departments and everyday familial affairs as per the academic enthusiasm contributed to the development of social psychology in India. Even the karmabased Bhakti was evident in the form of the Guru–Shishya relationship that metaphorically dwells on the affirmation of the urge to fit into the power hierarchy where one was knowledgeable and at a higher position, and the other was a seeker of knowledge and future aspirant to the development of one’s authority. The legitimacy of powerful or supreme seems unauthentic without the devoted follower. The followers and supreme are in continuous engagement to create the order. This corresponds to how the social construction of deference to the powerful is a new knowledge represented in discursive practices. The motivated devotion towards these aspects cannot be denied when it comes to the grounded understanding of how any idea is constructed, spread, and further taken forward in a frame of reference. For example, the way the tune or melody is the emergent property of nature (Prakriti), so the devotion. If nature, environment, and sociocultural impressions demand submission, deference, and immersion with the supreme Ishwar, the social construction of devotion will be inclined towards that direction. Social psychology seemingly developed in India because of the convergence among different traditions. These traditions experienced changes with cultural intersections, so the imposed stability retained its origin in mythology, but the narratives changed and were interpreted with the new alters. The intersubjectivity and intersections gave enriched meaning to the narratives, resulting in varieties (Burr, 2015; Daanen & Sammut, 2012; Gergen, 2009; Teo, 2021; Van Stapele, 2014; Wallerstein, 1996). Understanding theSocial Constructionism The social constructionism is not as ordinary as it seems (e.g. Gergen & Gergen, 2003). The roles of society, politics, history and economics are entangled in some way to create an ordinary life that is also entitled as normal. Social constructionism is a conscious approach to understanding how the way we are intertwined in the cobwebs of roles, responsibilities, status and systems. How things are socially constructed needs departure from the noiseless experiments deciphering the cognition–emotions–behaviour, etc. It looks and searches for confusion out of clarity, something that helps in describing the roots of how we become what we are and position ourselves in our everyday social circumstances. It is impossible and futile sometimes to be regressive to the roots which the humanity has already trespassed. For example, the quest to define the culture follows certain ways like observation, introspection and engagement with social artefacts, monuments, narratives, tools and available documents. It is interpreted, verified and presented in an intelligible way. Social constructionism gives perspective to define the social world. Technically, it helps in understanding any phenomenon by situating psychology as an emergent discipline without discarding the presence of other disciplines of social science. In the words of Gergen (2009), “ In effect, constructionism does not itself seek to be a final word but a form of discourse that will help us to avoid building worlds in which claims to Truth put an end to dialogue” (P. 166). Social constructionism is an interdisciplinary enterprise and makes social psychology a serious business among the interdisciplinary social sciences. It can be a simplified version for the presentists but also provides scope to unarm oneself from sophisticated tools and broaden the horizon to understand the social world. To live in the circulated narratives without taking cognizance of social constructionism and power is to fall into historicism. Social constructionism becomes useful when it draws on something connected to all the aforementioned aspects needed to define and redefine the meaning of human agency. It is seen in the power relationships of what to establish and what to reject. 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 2 11 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 REVISED PROOF Journal : Large 12646 Article No : 847 Pages : 7MS Code : 847 Dispatch : 13-11-2025 Psychol Stud Why Traditionalism isaSocial Construction? The lens of Bhakti is Ishwar, and Ishwar is a desire to attain the highest form of spirituality. Social psychology in India as a discipline had unfulfilled desires to know its people within the cultural boundary, fit to the celebrity Western psychology and love for tradition. While I state this, I am excluding this version for the few scholars who were the victims of concretized caste-based stigma or being from the Muslim and gendered minority group, who positioned themselves in academia somehow but largely excluded. While devotion (Bhakti) is seen to be beyond the caste sedimentations, the interpretations were not limited to what scripts narrated and dictated. Interpretation is a continuum that aptly fits the movements prominent in the Zeitgeist. I am not the person from oppressed caste to issue statements on this line. What I can do best is to place myself in solidarity with marginalized social groups. In becoming, I always chose to be pious and pure and link myself with Ishwara Pranidhan. I always shape my consciousness to think about the supreme, whether in fear, anxiety, anger, etc. I never strive to be like an untouchable or Dalit as I have that theory of mind of what it is to be like someone who has a deep history of oppression. Even if the oppressed people struggle with their identity and strive for equity and respect, the stigma of being lower caste never goes away, and that is why even Dalits don’t want to be Dalit; why should any upper caste be? If the reality of being devoted applies to anyone, why were the oppressed deprived and disadvantaged from intermingling with the dominant castes? These concerns are not limited to the assumption of a just world or the idea of deservingness. This social construction also requires a new social constructionist movement with a tint of modernity and critical approaches (Gergen, 1985). How much is the traditional way of understanding the social constructionist movement critical to the oppression spread in our society, and what does it do to demonstrate the methods of social movement? In the time of applications, results and applied discourses (e.g. Willig, 1999), the social constructionist movement needed a direction, something like a critical consciousness towards what was considered normal and justified, as nature and routinization of normal. The possibility of homogeneity is not without the possibility of decategorization. Both processes are paradoxical in themselves as both direct towards loss of identity, which is temporally situated and takes another form. Homogeneity can also be an illusion of becoming someone through one template, and it can also be a loss of self in the realm of supreme, Ishwar or paramatman. Reconsidering Modernism inIndian Social Psychology In locating the science of social psychology, what is not tangible cannot be known unless the case is made that intangible is manifested in one’s desires of devotion. In that sense, social psychology in India takes the form of Indian social psychology, where the desires of devotion are constructed in some socio-spiritual realm. The question is about the nature and reality of the realm and whose history is better represented in some political discursive arena. To be like an oppressed, I have to lose my history, memory and hence, identity, which doesn’t follow the same terrain as with the actual oppressed person. In that case, the oppression has to be defined, but it doesn’t mean I have the capacity and will to go into the roots of oppression that the oppressed beholder suffered. What I conjecture here regarding the becoming of something undesirable (i.e. oppressed) can be the construction of social context moderated by factors such as poverty, exclusions, rejection, dejection, dehumanization, etc. It is not a rule nor a necessity to understand oppression through the above-stated pathway. Being upper caste is a privilege and a matter of ascribed notion of one’s gripped identity, which no one can lose, whereas, in the case of lower caste and Dalits, there is no opportunity to transgress their caste as it is entangled in the everyday ascriptions, stigma and prejudices. Enaction or performance of others’ identity is impossible for the oppressed unless the phenomenology of devotion is seen in the varieties and diversities. The time of misinformation, hate-trolling and falsity at its height adds to social constructionism. The meaning of devotion is constructed at the cost of others’ lives, including memories, love and devotion. The domination of one’s devotion and rejection of others’ devotions, especially oppressed minorities such as Muslims, is a new social constructionism and has hegemonically occupied the ethics of doing discipline, and social psychology is not a part. Indigeneity is value loaded, and its social construction is a politics of desire where devotion is the anchor that directs the shaping of worldviews. The praxis of social psychology in India looks like a departure from neutrality, politics, pragmatic outlook and collective spiritual conscience. So, what social psychological development in India offers depends upon the researchers’ collective interest, the department’s metatheoretical inclination and the sociopolitical needs. It is important to note that there are socio-economic, sociocultural and sociopolitical issues such as poverty, gender and minority discrimination, caste-based issues, etc. However, it is dependent on the gatekeepers of social psychology, academic managers and the researcher’s training. In the words of Gergen (2015) ‘What does the research ultimately contribute to the world more generally? And this question is accompanied by a critical concern with politics and ideology. For whom are the outcomes useful, and in what way; who is benefited, who may be harmed; and who is absent from the discussion? We have, then, a pragmatism with a social conscience’. Gergen (1973) argued how psychology, unlike natural science, ‘deals with the facts that are largely 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 3 11 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 REVISED PROOF Journal : Large 12646 Article No : 847 Pages : 7MS Code : 847 Dispatch : 13-11-2025 Psychol Stud non-repeatable and which fluctuate markedly over time’ (p. 310). Nevertheless, the case made for the historical analysis, social psychology, showed mixed responses. The dominance and habituation of social psychology derived its fascination from experimentation. The preferred scholars were first-class experimentalists, and the researchers in the secondand third-tier categories were doing surveys or interviews because the latter is the journalist approach considered non-serious. Though responses from surveys or questionnaire-based methods were analysed statistically intelligibly, and the interviews were done quite meaningfully, they did not get much appreciation. They were assumed not to predict or explain the phenomenon as much as experiments. In contemporary times, though these approaches are frequent and sympathized with, the social construction of social psychology still shows the hierarchy of doing serious science. Though some scholars of social psychology wrote much in defence of qualitative surveys, Still, the presence of experimental social psychology is unmatched. In actuality, experimentation in social psychology advanced the discipline, and any attempt to question it was not appreciated as it didn’t come out with any structure. The interests of scholars from diverse groups in social psychology and some from the different allied disciplines of social psychology appreciate experimentations in social psychology as they give structure to their research objectives. It is important to note that understanding social construction is a political sensemaking. Social psychology is also doing politics and without the acknowledgement of the same, its meaning becomes reductive. The researchers from the marginalized group intend to advance their experience through experimentation to make their voices heard at the policy level or stop the policy skewed by prejudices. The quest is to understand how devotion, experience and research form a nexus and knit the paradigm. Hence, the social construction of knowledge is a non-deductive weaving of the answers to the questions. The devotion to research and the guide (Guru) can follow a similar trajectory or sometimes different pathways emanating from the same juncture of thought process that brought Guru and Chela together. In a way, the devotion can also be an imposition on the people who do not venture into the same terrains of experiences. This homogeneity may be possible if all the interested stakeholders of social psychology are weaved in the same nitty–gritty of emotion of devotion. As presented somewhere, the materialistic devotion where the Shishya looks forward to personal achievement and rejects the Purusha of the guru. He invites the contempt of Guru and, hence, the contempt of God. This social construction of devotion and scholarship offers something to the research paradigm. Since these are the dominant notions prevalent in the Indian social fabric of higher education, their impact on research and formulation of theoretical framework is inevitable. The greater debates on the doing of basic science are a matter of paradigms, falsification and zeitgeist. The social psychological approach derived from the harder science of doing experimentation does not align with what was debated by Gergen (1973) since he indicated that the science of social psychology is not possible as compared with the historical analysis of the social phenomenon. In other debates, science is also ideologically driven or interpreted (see Walker, 2013). Science was taken in the postmodernist critical theories as the product of human imagination, perceived sense of reality or some unquestionable model of understanding the social world through the language, sometimes completely different from the groups considered to be Aboriginals, forest dwellers or, in terms of varieties of indigeneity. However, science is a continuous process, and measurement is one of the important parts of testing models. Based on new evidence, the previous model of science is advanced. The criticality in science is possible with better methods, precisions and observation. In the case of psychology, these precisions are not only difficult but sometimes reach the point of absurdity. The observable truths explained through the concept of modern science seem to be fact and unquestionable. Still, the social construction of reality of these phenomena may have different meanings as they seem relevant to people’s communitarian life and social survival. Having said this, social psychology is a social construction of history, and the history of India, as it seems collectively visible, is devotion flowing through different social groups and intersectionality. Conclusion The publication of Kenneth Gergen’s paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology was a critical movement that disrupted the taken-for-granted way of doing social psychology (Gergen, 1973). Parallelly, in India, the devotion to modernity and making India a developed nation was the hot ambition, though at the cost of protagonists who were more fascinated to uncover the psychology of the Indian self out of the forest of desires which had occupied the mind of people. The rhetoric of dilution of culture and values was as strong as the scepticism towards new ideas packed in the name of modernity. However, the influence of the West impelled scholars from India to take Western education and return to India to do psychology, which brought change according to modern values without losing the native culture (Sinha, 1994). That is one of the pathways of social psychologists trained in the West. The scholars trained in India were not behind the development agenda, and the popular training avenues in India drove their approach. Though the contribution was interesting in the line of doing Western psychology, it was not fulfilling, which prompted them to look within 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 4 11 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 REVISED PROOF Journal : Large 12646 Article No : 847 Pages : 7MS Code : 847 Dispatch : 13-11-2025 Psychol Stud the culture and one’s shaping of self. The question was how Western knowledge addresses the indigenous selves. If not, then knowledge is limited, imposed, and dissatisfied with the ethics and demands of the culture. It is like moving away from one’s community, family and memories. A sense of loneliness and guilt occupy the consciousness of the social psychologists whose cultural duty is to work for the culture. In other words, social psychologists are also cultural workers. The present time is seeing the aggressive rift towards the West/Global North; even the doing of culture or working as a cultural worker of social psychology requires the approval of the West, training from the Global North and publication in prestigious journals. The devotion to doing research in the direction of inward-looking needs a Western vantage point. An article published in a prominent social psychology journal appreciated by the Global North or WEIRD community gets the mark of authenticity. The appropriation of one’s history and collective memories through the appreciation of the Western eye became the norm as if the Tamo Guna needed moderation of Rajas Guna of the West. The Sattva Guna did not have much scope in this business of modernity, social psychology and development. If it is to make its presence through the above-mentioned channel, it loses its property of being Sattva, pure or devotional. Social psychology, as a subdiscipline of psychology and a modernist enterprise, rebelled in the cultural context and ventured sporadically into the writings of scholars devoted to the Guru and the culture of conscience. This was both a deference to the idea of India based on traditionality and a departure from something unsuitable to the core values. The indications are towards the rebellious self in search of salvation and at the same time paradoxically knowing that the reality is not to look up for moksha but to the grounded approach for meaning-making, activism for social change and Indigenous ‘psychological discourse’ (see Gergen, 2009; p. 165). Hence, social constructionism changes with time and so does the meaning of closed and open systems of society. However, its ontological demeanour signifying the critical meaning of reality is both appreciated and potentially taken forward (e.g. Nightingale & Cromby, 2002). The social construction of history is social psychology as it is directed through the social psychological aspects of the people working to shape history to the systems, ‘metaphors and narratives’ of powers. The relevance of Gergen’s article has not faded but we can connect it with the changing social situations. The relevance never goes away but the interest and engagement. In the current times, social psychology in India shows signs of moving beyond the trap of race or competition to excel in doing Western, industrialized, casteist, patriarchal, developed ways of doing. It shows signs of resistance, respect for indigeneity, empathy for the oppressed and critical reflection. People who like doing social psychology wish to be expressive and need some space to engage with the likeminded readers and also critique. They want to go beyond the scientific, stable, consistent way of understanding human interaction since it seems neither congruent to the psychology of social nor appropriate to the subjective understanding of any being. However, it takes the discipline to be movement oriented and showcase continuity to the relevance of inquiry to address some of the most pressing social issues. Few research showing that psychology cannot be an empirical science (Smedslund, 2016; see also Aveling, 1933) need to be revisited, as psychology with its sub-disciplinary offshoots like social psychology aptly captured human social nature at least fitting the need for authentic and serious observations. Experience matters and social constructionism captures the speed and acceleration of social changes converging to the people’s experience and adaptability (see also Rosa and Trejo-Mathys, 2013). For example, if poverty is seen only as a subjective interpretation or vector this may reduce the meaning of poverty and the scope of social climbing, government interventions and people’s aspirations shall fade away. The connection between subjective and objective seems absurd, but this also be looked at in the best possible approach to offer justifiable representation to the people who need help. Otherwise, ethically it is consciousness avoidance of the social challenges in terms of deservingness, subjectivities and simplistic approach and denial of the social reality. Parallelly, the role of journals which facilitate social justice and address these challenges, whatever the methodology, as per the demand of research and not the popularity or being into self-complacency of doing hard science, as it is never feasible to the idea of justice, equality and sincerity. Gergen article (Gergen, 1973) is a representation of people, scholars who were the victims of cold observations of experiments (unless it connects with the people), prescriptive psychology dominant in education and the quick understanding social life. Social psychology despite being looking for human interaction missed the social in the real life, as it was more presentist in its approach. Its methods were seen as legitimate despite the needs of researched–researcher confluence. It facilitated the imperialism of knowledge, neglected the human, fetched out the data, fitted to the established models without going back to the community, and understanding their issues from whom the data were taken and packed (Smith, 1999). The article needs to be reused with new avenues and criticality. It is important to keep track of what kind of changes are reported and facilitated. The reality seems like a constructed phenomenon and its perception depends upon the will of society and enactment to give it a shape conducive to well-being and dignity. Acknowledgements Not applicable 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 5 11 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 REVISED PROOF Journal : Large 12646 Article No : 847 Pages : 7MS Code : 847 Dispatch : 13-11-2025 Psychol Stud Author contributions I am the sole contributor. Funding No Funding. Data Availability Not applicable. Declarations Competing interests Not applicable. Consent for publication Not applicable. Ethical approval and consent to participate. Not applicable. References Ambedkar, B. R. (Bhimrao Ramji), 1891–1956. (1990). Annihilation of caste: An undelivered speech. New Delhi: Arnold Publishers. Aveling, F. (1933). 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