Subjectivity in psychological science: From problem to prospect

The problem of subjectivity within psychological research has long been recognized. The practices of scientific psychology, however, continue to assume that objectivity is desirable, even if not completely possible, and that subjectivity is a source of bias that must be minimized or eliminated. Such a dispassionate stance has offered and continues to offer a range of benefits, not least a tight focus on participants' relevant responses. Nonetheless, in this article, we question the wisdom of always or automatically working to minimize participant and researcher subjectivity, and we invite psychological researchers to consider the benefits of a more, what we term, reflexive scientific attitude. We turn in particular to recent theoretical and methodological innovations within qualitative research in order to help us progress toward a more reflexive psychological science where subjectivity is re-viewed as a resource that can be tapped in order to contextualize and enrich the psychological research process and its products. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

The psychological science of Gustave Flaubert

Abstract

Flaubert claimed mastery in matters of style in the French language as well as in the psychological sciences. Mastery in both areas is on clear display in the writing of Madame Bovary. Our heroine presents as a new kind of personality, namely as someone who depends greatly on sensory experience in order to maintain her emotional equilibrium. So, when under stress, she can only find some kind of soothing comfort in her perfumes, silks, and cashmeres. This dynamic pattern leaves her at a disadvantage when tasked with higher level life requirements – such as the payment of bills, the very thing that, in the end, causes her ruin. Dynamically, failures of memory and the resulting fragmentation of experience leave her with a precarious sense of self. For our heroine, there is little ability to link present experience to the past and therefore no possibility of metaphoric or symbolic thinking; in other words, she is condemned to repeat. Flaubert felt that Madame Bovary would only have original value as the sum of his psychological understandings. Further, he hoped his psychological work, often hidden under the form, would be deeply felt by the reader, as it was by him.     

The fruits of a functional approach for psychological science

The current paper introduces relational frame theory (RFT) as a functional contextual approach to complex human behaviour and examines how this theory has contributed to our understanding of several key phenomena in psychological science. I will first briefly outline the philosophical foundation of RFT and then examine its conceptual basis and core concepts. Thereafter, I provide an overview of the empirical findings and applications that RFT has stimulated in a number of key domains such as language development, linguistic generativity, rule‐following, analogical reasoning, intelligence, theory of mind, psychopathology and implicit cognition.     

贫困问题:基于心理学的视角

贫困心理学,是在心理学视角下研究贫困问题的一种新研究取向,是心理学在贫困领域的最新运用。现阶段贫困心理学研究主要集中在主观幸福感、心理健康、行为决策等三个方面。贫困文化理论、稀缺理论、自我损耗论分别从贫困文化、稀缺心态以及意志力资源视角解释了贫困产生的心理机制。在摆脱贫困过程中需要打破贫困循环,未来贫困心理学研究需要进一步探讨贫困的产生机制、神经生理机制,贫困心理学的本土化研究以及心理学在扶贫工作中的应用等。     

Obstacles to disseminating applied psychological science

Many argue that the objectives of individual research reports are inconsistent with the needs of practitioners and should logically be changed. Based on a survey of how practitioners use psychological research, it appears that clinicians believe that research findings are, and have been, important in modifying their practices. However, they tend to get this “research” information more often from popular books, practice-oriented journals, and workshops than from research journals. Hence, information probably is not coming from scientists and may not actually represent state-of-the-art research knowledge. We propose that scientists should market their findings through popular articles and books, workshops, and other vehicles of communication valued by practitioners.     

Limits to problem solving in science

Popper, Polanyi and Duncker represent the widely held position that theoretical and experimental scientific research are motivated by problems to which discoveries are solutions. According to the argument here, their views are unsupported and - in light of counter-instances, anomalous chance discoveries, and the force of curiosity - over-generalized.     

The rhetoric of psychological research and the problem of unification in psychology

There has been in the field of psychology a long and well-documented discontent with an apparent disorganization in its literature, most often interpreted as reflecting the absence of a unifying theory. This article examines some alternative ways in which some of the disorganization is being actively created by forms of argumentation used in reporting and discussing psychological research. One institutionalized form of argumentation used in reporting data actually generates the proliferation of theoretical terms in the literature. A second form of argumentation reifies theories into social groups, incorporating values that discourage theoretical integration. Some of the discontent arises from the incompatibility between the values latent in such social organizations and the values that motivate scientific inquiry at a personal level.     

Qualitative research and its place in psychological science

In discussing the place of diverse qualitative research within psychological science, the authors highlight the potential permeability of the quantitative-qualitative boundary and identify different ways of increasing communication between researchers specializing in different methods. Explicating diversity within qualitative research is facilitated, initially, through documenting the range of qualitative data collection and analytic methods available. The authors then consider the notion of paradigmatic frame and review debates on the current and future positioning of qualitative research within psychological science. In so doing, the authors argue that the different ways in which the concept of paradigm can be interpreted allow them to challenge the idea that diverse research paradigms are prima facie incommensurate. Further, reviewing the ways in which proponents of qualitative research are seeking to reconfigure the links between paradigms helps the authors to envisage how communication between research communities can be enhanced. This critical review allows the authors to systematize possible configurations for research practice in psychology on a continuum of paradigm integration and to specify associated criteria for judging intermethod coherence.