Megatrends in personality assessment: toward a human science professional psychology

Societal megatrends have assessment counterparts--superempiricism, biopsychosocial perspective, person-centering, population-specificity, self-assessment--which are used to examine the contemporary status of professional psychology. A human science approach to research, training, and practice can exemplify a profession that acknowledges these megatrends. The nurture of competent professional psychologists requires a reinvestment in Boulder Model ideology, a human science that is shared with consumers on the basis of values which communicate caring and understanding.     

Folk psychology as science

There is a long-standing debate in the philosophy of action and the philosophy of science over folk psychological explanations of human action: do the (perhaps implicit) generalizations that underwrite such explanations purport to state contingent, empirically established connections between beliefs, desires, and actions, or do such generalizations serve rather to define, at least in part, what it is to have a belief or desire, or perform an action? This question has proven important because of certain traditional assumptions made about the role of law-statements in scientific explanations. According to this tradition, law-statements take the form of generalizations, and the laws we find in well-established sciences are contingent and empirical; as such, if the kinds of generalizations at work in folk psychological explanations of human action act like definitions, or state conceptual connections, then such generalizations could not play the kind of explanatory role we find in mature sciences. This paper argues that the aforementioned way of framing the debate reflects a still powerful but impoverished conception of the role laws play in scientific explanations, a conception that, moreover, cannot be reconciled with a good deal of actual scientific practice. When we update the philosophy of science, we find the concerns that are raised for folk psychological explanations largely evaporate or are found not to be specific to such explanations.     

Jung's mediatory science as a psychology beyond objectivism

In this paper, the author argues that Jung's non-objectivist--yet scientific--epistemology and his empirical/hermeneatic methods of inquiry situate him within a psychological tradition that, in many respects, began with William James and, today, is finding expression in the work of many non-Jungian cognitive scientists. In an effort to encourage dialogue between Jungians and scholars within related intellectual traditions, the author presents evidence from the corpus of Jung's work that demonstrates that, like William James, Jung intentionally rejected the absolutist claims of objectivism and the opposite position on 'anything goes' relativism, emotivism, or subjectivism. Instead, Jung forged a path that led to the meta-psychological position similar to internal realism (Putnam 1981) or experientialism (Lakoff 1987) and to a theoretical psychology that gave a central place both to unconscious cognitive structure and to imagination. This he labelled a 'mediatory science'. The psychological theories developed within this mediatory science framework represent an early articulation of key constructs that are currently used by a number of cognitive scientists seeking to understand how we make sense of experience.     

Neo‐Confucian epistemology and Chinese philosophy: Practical postulates for actioning psychology as a human science

The world is growing more interconnected, and Asian societies are increasingly able to play leading roles in global society. However, Asian psychologists and social scientists have yet to draw from their cultural roots to create social sciences able to make a difference in their home societies. This paper articulates an epistemology for the aspirational practice of Height Psychology as a human science informed by Kantian epistemology in dialogue with other philosophies, especially Confucianism and Taoism. The possibility of ‘intellectual intuition’ (direct knowledge of thing‐in‐itself, or noumenon) is allowed in Eastern philosophical traditions that open a more agentic and human‐centred philosophy of science for action that goes beyond natural science epistemologies originating in Cartesian dualism. Kant's practical postulates are invoked to develop a moral and ethical philosophy that through civilizational dialogue can lead to a philosophy of science robustly incorporating culture and human agency. A thought experiment is offered where practical postulates of Chinese culture are held to be yin‐yang cosmology, human‐heartedness, and relationalism. It is argued that these facilitate an holistic science of practice that complements the sophistication of Western methods. Principles and an approach to theory‐building for human science are proposed.     

Culture and personality: toward an integrated cultural trait psychology

Two theoretical perspectives currently dominate research on culture and personality, the cross-cultural trait psychology approach, in which the trait concept is central, and the cultural psychology approach, in which the trait concept is questioned. Here I review theory and research from both perspectives and propose that the tenets of cultural psychology, at least in their more moderate forms, can be synthesized with the trait psychology approach, resulting in an integrated cultural trait psychology perspective.     

Speculation and theory-building in the development of psychology as a science

In this commentary on a classic article by Paul Wachtel on the importance of theoretical work in empirical research, the author expresses agreement that reward structures discourage the kind of theoretical speculation that may lead to new understandings of existing data and, even more critically, to new ways of formulating questions to be addressed in controlled research. Our students in particular need to be encouraged to reflect on what their own empirical research really means within the larger framework of trying to understand the world in psychological terms. New theories and paradigms do not emerge inevitably from a body of data. Rather, they represent creative insights whose sources are poorly understood and yet are overlooked at our risk.     

Status of psychology as a science in northeast Brazil: undergraduate students' perceptions

The Psychology as Science scale was used to assess whether Brazilian students believe psychology is a science. 190 undergraduates from four universities in Brazil participated. Analysis showed that 54% of students strongly agree that psychology is a science, 26% strongly agree that psychological research is necessary and that training in methodology is important, and 25% strongly agree that behavior is predictable.     

Functional relations and cognitive psychology: Lessons from human performance and animal research

We consider requirements for effective interdisciplinary communication and explore alternative interpretations of “building bridges between functional and cognitive psychology.” If the bridges are intended to connect radical behaviourism and cognitive psychology, or functional contextualism and cognitive psychology, the efforts are unlikely to be successful. But if the bridges are intended to connect functional relationships and cognitive theory, no construction is needed because the bridges already exist within cognitive psychology. We use human performance and animal research to illustrate the latter point and to counter the claim that the functional approach is unique in offering a close relationship between science and practice. Effective communication will be enhanced and, indeed, may only occur if the goal of functional contextualism extends beyond just “the advancement of functional contextual cognitive and behavioral science and practice” to “the advancement of cognitive and behavioral science and practice” without restriction.     

Applied developmental psychology as an implementation of a life-span view of human development

Application of knowledge about psychological development should, ideally, be theory based. As such, these applications represent “natural ontogenetic experiments”; the results of the evaluation of such interventions feed back to the theory, helping to support, falsify, or refine the ideas from the theory which led to the particular application. Such applied developmental intervention research is central within a currently popular perspective of life-span human development. Thus, applied developmental intervention research provides critical tests of such key concepts within this life-span perspective as: plasticity; multidirectionality; the synthesis of continuous and discontinuous processes across ontogeny; contextual embeddedness; and the role of individuals as agents in their own development. This paper elucidates some of the major features of the dynamic linkage between applied developmental psychology and this view of life-span human development. Key elements of this life-span perspective and the facts of developmental intervention, as seen from this perspective, are specified. Finally, the doctoral training program at the authors' institution is presented as one example of how this link may be institutionalized in the form of graduate education.     

Developmental dynamics: toward a biologically plausible evolutionary psychology

There has been a conceptual revolution in the biological sciences over the past several decades. Evidence from genetics, embryology, and developmental biology has converged to offer a more epigenetic, contingent, and dynamic view of how organisms develop. Despite these advances, arguments for the heuristic value of a gene-centered, predeterministic approach to the study of human behavior and development have become increasingly evident in the psychological sciences during this time. In this article, the authors review recent advances in genetics, embryology, and developmental biology that have transformed contemporary developmental and evolutionary theory and explore how these advances challenge gene-centered explanations of human behavior that ignore the complex, highly coordinated system of regulatory dynamics involved in development and evolution.     

Jewish-Arab relations in Israel: a psychology of adolescence perspective

Jewish and Arab high school seniors (61 Jewish boys and 51 Jewish girls, 57 Arab boys and 49 Arab girls) participated in a study of future orientation and described their hopes and fears for the future. The present analysis focuses on part of the data pertaining to the respondents' cross-ethnic references. More Arab than Jewish adolescents referred to the other ethnic group. The cross-ethnic references contained hope for peace and fear of war; the Arab statements, however, also showed discontent with Israeli authorities. More Arab than Jewish adolescents referred to collective issues (the people, the state, the world). The percentage of Jewish and Arab adolescents concerned with Jewish-Arab relations relative to the number addressing other aspects of collective concerns were similar (12% for Jews and 16% for Arabs). For Jews, this small number was related to adolescents' egocentrism and for Arabs, to adolescents' ethnocentrism.     

On medicine as a human science

All the powerful influences exertedby the subjective-interpersonal dimension onthe organic or technical-functional dimensionof sickness and health do not make anintersubjective test concerning medicaltherapeutic results impossible. Theseinfluences are not arbitrary; on the contrary,they obey laws that are de facto sufficientlystable to allow predictions and explanationssimilar to those of experimental sciences.While, in this respect, the rules concerninghuman action are analogous to the scientificlaws of nature, they can at any time be revokedby becoming aware of them. Law-like andreproducible regularities in the sciences ofman are by no means separated from a patient'spersonal-hermeneutic mediation. This makes itpossible for human beings to modify, improve orsometimes even entirely (or better almostentirely) suspend these psychological,sociological, ethnological, medical,regularities. For this reason the sciences ofman including medicine are under the obligationof constantly inspecting the continuingvalidity of the rules on which theirpredictions and explanations are based, namelyby indirect, statistical methods. Thisrequires a synergistic collaboration ofextra-clinical and clinical tests through whichmedicine can obtain a good level ofintersubjective testability.     

Teaching psychology as a laboratory science in the age of the Internet

For over 30 years, psychologists have relied on computers to teach experimental psychology. With the advent of experiment generators, students can create well-designed experiments and can test sophisticated hypotheses from the start of their undergraduate training. Characteristics of new Net-based experiment generators are discussed and compared with traditional stand-alone generators. A call is made to formally evaluate the instructional effectiveness of the wide range of experiment generators now available. Specifically, software should be evaluated in terms of known learning outcomes, using appropriate control groups. The many inherent differences between any two software programs should be made clear. The teacher’s instructional method should be fully described and held constant between comparisons. Finally, the often complex interaction between the teacher’s instructional method and the pedagogical details of the software must be considered.     

The relations between neuroscience and human behavioral science.

Neuroscience seeks to understand how the human brain, perhaps the most complex electrochemical machine in the universe, works, in terms of molecules, membranes, cells and cell assemblies, development, plasticity, learning, memory, cognition, and behavior. The human behavioral sciences, in particular psychiatry and clinical psychology, deal with disorders of human behavior and mentation. The gap between neuroscience and the human behavioral sciences is still large. However, some major advances in neuroscience over the last two decades have diminished the span. This article reviews the major advances of neuroscience in six areas with relevance to the behavioral sciences: (a) evolution of the nervous system; (b) visualizing activity in the human brain; (c) plasticity of the cerebral cortex; (d) receptors, ion channels, and second/third messengers; (e) molecular genetic approaches; and (f) understanding integrative systems with networks and circadian clocks as examples.     

Disciplining social psychology: a case study of boundary relations in the history of the human sciences

This paper explores the disciplinary status of social psychology through an analysis of the history of the boundary relations of psychology, sociology, and social psychology. After outlining some research on the nature of scientific disciplines, on the role of rhetoric in the constitution of disciplines, and on "boundary work," I consider the singular importance of social psychology as a discipline for the analysis of boundary relations, examining its units of analysis and its "disciplining." The boundaries of the disciplines of social psychology were seen as fluid, contingent, local, and contestable, reflecting the thematic preoccupations, disciplinary origins, and meta-theoretical commitments of social psychologists, of the parent disciplines, and of those who represent disciplinary practices.