As a discipline, psychology's status as a science has always been tenuous. There are multiple contributors to this, with a major one being methodology. Methodology is the set of epistemological and ontological stances we take as part of creating or selecting methods (Valsiner, 2017). Methods, in turn, are the particular tools or techniques we employ that guide what we learn from our observations.
Methodology was of interest to many psychologists in the early history of the discipline, but this changed some time in the early 20th century (Toomela, 2007). Philosophical questions about research were all but excised and replaced with a set of not-to-be-questioned philosophical commitments (e.g., empiricism, measurability, universalism). Subsequently, methodological inquiry became the game of building better methods—the never-ending quest of creating more reliable, valid, or useful techniques. Psychology is currently rich in methods, but poor in methodology.
Inasmuch as the lack of methodology constitutes a paradigm in psychology, it has more or less continued unabated throughout most of the 20th century. The last few decades have seen an increase in methodology-oriented work (e.g., Borsboom, 2005; Uher, 2016; Valsiner & Toomela, 2010), but it hardly constitutes a paradigm shift. Nonetheless, there is hope that if this work continues and can impinge upon more mainstream thinking in psychological inquiry, then a paradigm change may occur in the future. For this to happen, however, psychologists must continue to question and discuss explicitly the philosophical assumptions embedded in their research (Toomela, 2010). There are many such assumptions, but what follows are four particular areas where psychologists will benefit from continued methodological work.
What do psychologists study?
Science works by systematically using evidence to advance knowledge rather than relying on authority. What counts as systematic and evidence, however, depends on the subject matter (Mascolo, 2017). Thus, defining subject matter is important. By definition psychologists study the psyche. Originally psyche meant something along the lines of breath and represented something immaterial (i.e., soul), but currently psychologists interpret it as something along the lines of the mind. Whether the soul or mind, psychical phenomena are distinct from phenomena in nearly every other science. First, they only exist within persons. We do not observe surgency or g, but particular persons' surgency or g. Second, we cannot directly observe psychical phenomena in other persons. We can observe other persons' behavior, but behavioral phenomena are conceptually distinct from psychical phenomena (Uher, 2016b). This does not entail reverting back to the problematic "inner" and "outer" bifurcation, but it does mean that the Psy-disciplines’ tradition of adopting methods from other disciplines could be inhibiting psychologists' work instead of enhancing it. The methods by which psychologists study their focal phenomena should likely be as unique as the phenomena themselves.
What is the nature of psychical phenomena?
Whether psychologists approach their investigations from a person or attribute-oriented perspective, they need to understand the nature of psychical phenomena (Horn, 2006). But each phenomenon is unique, so needs to be approached uniquely (Baker, & Hacker, 2005). This means that psychologists cannot continue to ignore conceptual analyses, but instead must employ them regularly. Psychologists can only build strong theories and conduct meaningful experiments if they are accompanied by rigorous conceptual work (Machado, Lourenço, & Silva, 2000).
What instruments should psychologists use?
The most common type of instrument psychologists currently employ is the questionnaire requiring self-report. There is nothing inherently wrong with questionnaires or self-reports when employed because they are the optimal way to capture a particular phenomenon (Uher, 2018). They are problematic when psychologists adopt them out of convenience, which appears to be the case more often than not (Baumeister, Vohs, & Funder, 2007). A better approach requires psychologists to consider the nature of the focal phenomenon and use that information to determine the best way to observe and capture it (Maraun, 1998).
With whom should psychologists' conduct research?
The received view in most psychological research textbooks is that proper empirical work involves conducting experiments involving a large sample from a particular population. There is certainly nothing wrong with this particular approach, but it is predicated on some strong methodological assumptions (Danziger, 1987). It is interesting to note that the psychologists who conducted some of the most seminal work done in the discipline (e.g., Ebbinghaus, Piaget) did not employ this approach. They focused on conducting multiple small-scale experiments with differing populations or differing conditions. The point here is not that one approach is universally better, but that there are multiple ways to conduct psychological research, each of which is embedded in its own particular methodological assumptions. The particular approach psychologists select should be the outgrowth of considered forethought about methodology.
References
Baker, G. P., & Hacker, P. M. S. (200). Wittgenstein: Understanding and meaning, Part I: Essays (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Funder, D. C. (2007). Psychology as the science of self-reports and finger movements: Whatever happened to actual behavior? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 396-403. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00051.x
Borsboom, D. (2005). Measuring the mind: Conceptual issues in contemporary psychometrics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Danziger, K. (1987). Statistical method and the historical development of research practice in American psychology. In L. Krüger, G. Gigerenzer & M. S. Morgan (Eds.), The probabilistic revolution, Vol. 2: Ideas in sciences (pp. 35--47). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Horn, J. L. (2006). Comments on integrating person‐centered and variable‐centered research on problems associated with the use of alcohol. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 24, 924-930. doi:10.1111/j.1530-0277.2000.tb02074.x
Machado, A., Lourenço, O., & Silva, F. J. (2000). Facts, concepts, and theories: The shape of psychology's epistemic triangle. Behavior and Philosophy, 28, 1-40.
Maraun, M. D. (1998). Measurement as a normative practice: Implications of Wittgenstein's philosophy for measurement in psychology. Theory & Psychology, 8, 435-461. doi:10.1177/0959354398084001
Mascolo, M. F. (2017). How objectivity undermines the study of personhood: Toward an intersubjective epistemology for psychological science. New Ideas in Psychology, 44, 41-48. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2016.11.005
Toomela, A. (2007). Culture of science: Strange history of the methodological thinking in psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 41, 6-20. doi:10.1007/s12124-007-9004-0
Toomela, A. (2010). Modern mainstream psychology is the best? Noncumumlative, historically blind fragmented, atheoretical. In A. Toomela & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Methodological thinking in psychology: 60 years gone astray? (pp. 1--26). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers.
Uher, J. (2016). Exploring the workings of the psyche: Metatheoretical and methodological foundations. In J. Valsiner, G. Marsico, N. Chaudhary, T. Sato & V. Dazzani (Eds.), Psychology as the science of human being: The Yokohama Manifesto (pp. 299–324). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Uher, J. (2016b). What is behaviour? And (when) is language behaviour? A metatheoretical definition. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 46, 475-501. doi:10.1111/jtsb.12104
Uher, J. (2018). Quantitative data from rating scales: An epistemological and methodological enquiry. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(2599), 1-27. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02599
Valsiner, J. (2017). From methodology to methods in human psychology. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Valsiner, J., & Toomela, A. (Eds.). (2010). Methodological thinking in psychology: 60 years gone astray? Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers.
About the Author
A. Alexander Beaujean is a professor in the Psychology & Neuroscience Department at Baylor University. He earned PhDs in School Psychology and Educational Psychology from the University of Missouri. His research interests are in individual differences, particularly related to psychological measurement and assessment. He is currently president-elect of the American Psychological Association, Division 5 (Quantitative and Qualitative Methods).
Headshot: Beaujean.jpg