The Fruits of Critical Discussion: A Reply to the Commentators.

The article focuses on social psychology and racial problems involving employment. Racial problems involving employment are major issues that deserve intense scientific scrutiny. Social psychology has distinctive and important contributions to make to the analysis of and remedies for these problems. To be sure, such complex and persistent problems require multidisciplinary attention, but we hold that social psychology has a critical piece of the puzzle to contribute. The discipline had not yet applied the full force of its research and theory to the problem. The exercise in critical rationalism lends clarity to the discipline's agreements and disagreements in this applied area and underscores its complexity. In sharpening the analysis, the critiques isolate the many points at which a broad and effective social psychological analysis of racial employment problems requires additional conceptual and empirical work. Given the complexity of current racial attitudes and behavior among white Americans, it is no wonder that there is disagreement about current racial views.