Social/personality psychology in context

Mainstream social/personality psychology, an essentially North American post-World War II construction has remained wedded to a physical science metatheory in pursuit of behavioral universals, while treating cultural idiosyncrasies as epiphenomena. This project, pursued overwhelmingly within the context of capitalist economic constraints, has seldom led to findings of sufficient generality to justify the search, and is further undermined by increasing recognition that differences provided by sociohistorical contexts have ontological significance for human development. The context of the mainstream is examined and, as a hermeneutic alternative, Marxian/communal metatheory is proposed and shown to be in synchrony with positions taken by several prominent internal mainstream critics. The paper also questions the appropriateness of the modal personality projected by mainstream theorists to a world of shrinking natural resources.