Ideology, false consciousness and psychology

Marxist social theory and, in particular, Marxist notions of ideology have never been popular within psychology. Recently, however, the Marxist notion of false consciousness has begun to make appearances in mainstream psychol ogical journals. In this paper I argue that this notion has been misappropr iated by those who construct it simply as a psychological-cognitive phenome non located in individuals' heads, rather than as a socially emergent produ ct of a capitalist society. A cognitive construction of false consciousness by social psychologists is no surprise given the dominance of social cogni tion as a research tradition within psychology: a tradition which has alway s emphasized the limited and faulty cognitive capacities of the individual and one which sits comfortably with a highly individualized and psychologic al account of false consciousness. The inherent epistemological difficultie s in maintaining the notion of false consciousness within contemporary soci al theory are discussed. Despite these difficulties, it is argued that the notion of false consciousness remains a useful theoretical construct, not a s a psychological and cognitive affliction suffered by the 'less enlightene d', but as a phenomenon grounded in social reality itself: in particular, t he material reality of late capitalism and postmodern culture.