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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Participatory action research | 3/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_action_research | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T10:02:47.553680+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Organizational life === Action research in the workplace took its initial inspiration from Lewin's work on organizational development (and Dewey's emphasis on learning from experience). Lewin's seminal contribution involves a flexible, scientific approach to planned change that proceeds through a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of 'a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action', towards an organizational 'climate' of democratic leadership and responsible participation that promotes critical self-inquiry and collaborative work. These steps inform Lewin's work with basic skill training groups, T-groups where community leaders and group facilitators use feedback, problem solving, role play and cognitive aids (lectures, handouts, film) to gain insights into themselves, others and groups with a view to 'unfreezing' and changing their mindsets, attitudes and behaviours. Lewin's understanding of action-research coincides with key ideas and practices developed at the influential Tavistock Institute (created in 1947)) in the UK and National Training Laboratories (NTL) in the US. An important offshoot of Tavistock thinking and practise is the sociotechnical systems perspective on workplace dynamics, guided by the idea that greater productivity or efficiency does not hinge on improved technology alone. Improvements in organizational life call instead for the interaction and 'joint optimization' of the social and technical components of workplace activity. In this perspective, the best match between the social and technical factors of organized work lies in principles of 'responsible group autonomy' and industrial democracy, as opposed to deskilling and top-down bureaucracy guided by Taylor's scientific management and linear chain of command. NTL played a central role in the evolution of experiential learning and the application of behavioral science to improving organizations. Process consultation, team building, conflict management, and workplace group democracy and autonomy have become recurrent themes in the prolific body of literature and practice known as organizational development (OD). As with 'action science', OD is a response to calls for planned change and 'rational social management' involving a normative human relations movement and approach to worklife in capital-dominated economies. Its principal goal is to enhance an organization's performance and the worklife experience, with the assistance of a consultant, a change agent or catalyst that helps the sponsoring organization define and solve its own problems, introduce new forms of leadership and change organizational culture and learning. Diagnostic and capacity-building activities are informed, to varying degrees, by psychology, the behavioural sciences, organizational studies, or theories of leadership and social innovation. Appreciative Inquiry (AI), for instance, is an offshoot of PAR based on positive psychology. Rigorous data gathering or fact-finding methods may be used to support the inquiry process and group thinking and planning. On the whole, however, science tends to be a means, not an end. Workplace and organizational learning interventions are first and foremost problem-based, action-oriented and client-centred.
=== Psychosociology === Tavistock broke new ground in other ways, by meshing general medicine and psychiatry with Freudian and Jungian psychology and the social sciences to help the British army face various human resource problems. This gave rise to a field of scholarly research and professional intervention loosely known as psychosociology, particularly influential in France (CIRFIP). Several schools of thought and 'social clinical' practise belong to this tradition, all of which are critical of the experimental and expert mindset of social psychology. Most formulations of psychosociology share with OD a commitment to the relative autonomy and active participation of individuals and groups coping with problems of self-realization and goal effectiveness within larger organizations and institutions. In addition to this humanistic and democratic agenda, psychosociology uses concepts of psychoanalytic inspiration to address interpersonal relations and the interplay between self and group. It acknowledges the role of the unconscious in social behaviour and collective representations and the inevitable expression of transference and countertransference—language and behaviour that redirect unspoken feelings and anxieties to other people or physical objects taking part in the action inquiry. The works of Balint, Jaques, and Bion are turning points in the formative years of psychosociology. Commonly cited authors in France include Amado, Barus-Michel, Dubost, Enriquez, Lévy, Gaujelac, and Giust-Desprairies. Different schools of thought and practice include Mendel's action research framed in a 'sociopsychoanalytic' perspective and Dejours's psychodynamics of work, with its emphasis on work-induced suffering and defence mechanisms. Lapassade and Lourau's 'socianalytic' interventions focus rather on institutions viewed as systems that dismantle and recompose norms and rules of social interaction over time, a perspective that builds on the principles of institutional analysis and psychotherapy. Anzieu and Martin's work on group psychoanalysis and theory of the collective 'skin-ego' is generally considered as the most faithful to the Freudian tradition. Key differences between these schools and the methods they use stem from the weight they assign to the analyst's expertise in making sense of group behaviour and views and also the social aspects of group behaviour and affect. Another issue is the extent to which the intervention is critical of broader institutional and social systems. The use of psychoanalytic concepts and the relative weight of effort dedicated to research, training and action also vary.
== Applications ==