This paper seeks to explicate the widely used but largely unworked concept of levels of analysis in social psychology by examining its origin, need, and place in the discipline. Following Schneirla's distinction between levels of organization and levels of analysis, it outlines the problem of varied relationships between the two kinds of levels and discovers among social psychologists distinctly reductive, anti-reductive, and interdisciplinary attitudes toward the idea of levels. The presentation culminates in a paradigm of levels which generates not only the ideal typical approaches, but also clarifies the actual patterns of interdisciplinary relations, in social sciences.
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