Research Traditions, Analysis, and Synthesis

Berkowitz and Devine's examination of research traditions in social psychology and their consideration of dissonance theory are questioned. In contrast to their position, the present authors doubt that the research enterprise can be neatly divided into analytic versus synthetic strategies. Furthermore, the authors question Berkowitz and Devine's portrayal of contemporary social psychology as too heavily analytic and too lightly synthetic. Nor do the auth ors see synthesis as at all incompatible with the field's present cognitive orientation. Last, and most important, is a discussion of the various manners in which Berkowitz and Devine have misinterpreted the authors' reformulation of dissonance processes. The breadth and synthetic value of the reformulation are discussed as an illustration of the synergistic relation between analytic and synthetic efforts.