Humanistic research (HR) in psychology is scientific research that approaches the systemic quest for knowledge from the perspective of human science rather than natural science. The phrase “human science” was initially used during the scientific revolution of the 17th century but was lost with the adoption of natural science methods by mainstream psychology in the early 20th century. As mainstream psychology has embraced the empiricist ideology of certainty and objectivity via natural science methods, the assumptive basis for natural science has continuously been undermined by philosophers of science who published on the logical fallacies of logical positivism/empiricism, by physicists (scholars of the most basic of all the natural sciences) who demonstrated that objectivity and reality are illusions at the subatomic level, and by humanists who emphasized the limitations of applying the science of objects to the study of agentic, sentient beings.
Despite the shaken foundations of empiricism, mainstream psychology has clung to the prestige of empirical research and devalued humanistic and other non-dominant research traditions. Nowhere is this research elitism seen more clearly than in the psychotherapy research literature, where there has been a decades-long concerted effort from the academy to maintain the superiority of academically-conducted randomized controlled trials despite the fact that outcome-relevant client, therapist, and relationship (alliance) variables cannot be experimentally controlled or manipulated. What can be controlled and manipulated in experimental research are treatment techniques. After 50 years of academic research on techniques, the overwhelming consensus finding is that technique has a very small effect on outcome relative to therapist, client, and relationship variables which are at the heart of humanistic concerns.
While the devotees of the humanistic and natural science approaches in psychology often use very different research methods in the pursuit of their sciences, there is an aspect to research that ideally should be the same across both scientific traditions—that is, the scientific attitude. Curiosity about phenomena, awareness of the potential for bias in research, openness to evidence that is contrary to expectations/hypotheses, tolerance for uncertainty, and intolerance for dogma are all part of the scientific attitude. Research that sets out to prove a point or explains away disconfirming evidence is not scientific. Researchers who dogmatically claim that their method is the best science have a scientistic attitude as opposed to a scientific one.
Though HR uses a variety of methods, in-depth interviews are commonly conducted to capture the lived experience of the individual. Often, narrative and phenomenological models are used to interpret the data. Thematic analysis is a common analytic method in HR. While some quantitatively-oriented researchers code themes (sometimes with predetermined codes) to enable quantification, HR typically uses linguistic analysis to extract meaning from complex narratives while at the same time making efforts to exclude researcher bias.
Increased attention to researcher bias is a prominent development in HR and stands in marked contrast to how bias is approached psychometrically in quantitative research. In HR, the person of the researcher is the research instrument. A number of procedures have been developed to increase researcher awareness and transparency of their biases in hearing, responding to, and interpreting the data during collection and analysis. In contrast, researcher bias in mainstream psychology seems largely ignored, consistent with an assumption of researcher objectivity. Instead, research bias is addressed in terms of the artifacts caused by research procedures and measures.
Regarding populations and problems of interest, HR is especially interested in—and methodologically adept at—giving voice to the experiences of marginalized populations or exploring emergent issues that have not received widespread attention. Humanistic psychology also has an interest in developing quantitative measures that are important to human experience such as measures of authenticity, self-actualization, and therapist intuition. It is important to note that HR was the first research tradition to explore process and outcome in therapy. This early research used quantitative methods. Findings regarding the strong relationship of the Rogerian facilitative conditions to therapy improvement have been replicated numerous times and have been supported by meta-analyses.
Qualitative HR research employs concepts and procedures that are analogous to validity and reliability in quantitative research. One of the overarching concepts in assessing the quality of HR is trustworthiness, which has several components. For example, researchers check the accuracy of their interpretation of the data with participants to reduce “measurement error” and, thereby, promote reliability. Researchers illustrate data analysis by providing thick evocative descriptions of the phenomena of the experience, thereby inviting the research reader to empathically co-construct the reality of the findings with the research participant and researcher. Sampling is typically very different in a qualitative humanistic study compared to those published in more traditional journals. Samples are small and often purposeful, recruiting participants who have had experience with the phenomena being studied. It would be unusual to see an HR study using psychology students or a stratified random sample. Generalizability is not often the goal of humanistic research. Rather, transferability is the concept that is used to extend the findings of the study-appropriate contexts.
Humanistic researchers embrace the subjective. They interrogate their own subjectivity to manage any preconceived notions that would color their work with participants and their data. They do not purport to present an objective interpretation of the phenomena they study. Rather, their work focuses first on developing a co-constructed view of a reality with participants. Then researchers express their findings in such a coherent and evocative way that the research reader enters and participates in the continued co-construction of the findings. That is my vision of human science in humanistic research.
Author Bio
Kevin Keenan earned a BA in Psychology and an MA and PhD in clinical psychology during the late 70s. He has had fellowships with the National Institute of Mental Health and the Detroit Psychiatric Institute. As a core faculty member of the Michigan School of Psychology for over a decade, Keenan teaches courses in research and psychotherapy, directs dissertation and student research, and shares in the responsibility of maintaining the integrity of the academic programs of MSP. Keenan has a private practice in Farmington Hills, Michigan. He has special interests in spirituality, lifespan development, and recovery. Keenan is a Fellow of the Michigan Psychological Association (MPA) and has recently ended 9 years of service on the board of the Society for Humanistic Psychology. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, and he recently co-edited the 2nd edition of Humanistic Psychotherapies: Handbook of Research and Practice, to which he also contributed a chapter entitled, “The Good Therapist: Evidence for the Essential Qualities of the Effective Therapist.”