The Mismatch between Current Research Methods ...

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Theory &Psychology

The Mismatch between Current Research Methods and the Nature of Psychological Phenomena What Researchers Must Learn from Practitioners Jan Smedslund UNI V ERSITY

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An ~ rR.\ n . Psycho logical re,e;lJ'ch and practicl! bOlh start from wllal we all know about be ing hum :ln bcc,luse we ;In: human, what we kn ow abou tl!a ch other bc ca w;e we parti c ipall' in shared mean ing syslcm s (langua ge and cu Ilure), and whut we know about uniquc indi viduals. Prulllptions of thc relevant shared Illeaning system; and th e effect size.; aIe !or the most part so small that they arc useless in practice.

Discussion

The position outlined here is by no Illeans isolated in contempor3lY psychol­ ogy. It belongs to a broad movement 0[" hermeneutic psychology with roots

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in the writings of. among others, Dillhcy (189-1 / 192711 977 ), Heidegger (192711 962), and Gadamer (]9 6011 989) and, in contemporary psychology, labeled as social constmctionist (Gergen, 1985) or cultural psychology (Bruner, 1990). Many reprcsentative articlcs can be found in Gergen and Da vis (1985), Semin and Gergen ( 1990), and Smith, ]-Iall'c, and Van Langenhove (1995a , 1995b). The present article attempts to formulate, at a very general level and as preeisely as poss ible, the characteristics of psycho­ logical phenomena that form obstructions to the traditional mainstream approach . Although somewh at similar arguments can be found in the litera­ ture, and no doubt undcrlie the thinking of many social constructionist and cui rural psychologists, it has remained a task to speeify and isolate thc four conditions that cannOt be fUI1her reduced. [t has also been important to point out how practical psychology must implicitly take the..;e fach into account and therefore has developed in ways that differ 11-0111 the academic research tradition. From a common starting point ofunrctlcetively taking for granted the general featur(' ., of being human , the shared gencral and local meaning ;,ystems, ~IJ1d the uniqueness of individuals, psychologieal researchers and practitillflers have divcrged. Academic researchers hah' pursued the goal of diseu\ering bws or I\:gulariti-:;,;, whereas practitioncrs h:1Ve tried to Illaximize cJ'i'eetive­ nt· S~. The uutcome has been two different approaches. Rese,ireilers produce repol1s eontaining statistical relationships between mc:\sured variables , under the assumption 1I);]t all otller things arc equal. What is not reported is the uncertaint y about the large number of unknown variables hidden in the eon stant conditions (instructions. materials, cte .) and in the con­ stant population from which the experimental and eontrol samples arc drawn . By hidden unknown variables I mean aH. the poss ible variations in instructions, materials, and populations that would makc a di fference in the rcsults. In hrief there is a lack ofknowlcdge about exaetly what is held constant. AI .~\.), it is often not explicitly recognized that general'izing the findings presupposes stability of the shared meaning systcms and the expcrimental conditions involved . and that if meanings and consequences change . expcrimental rcsults arc al so bound to change. In SUmITlaIY, the findings are typically presented as intlinsi­ cally stable whereas ill reality they n:llcct phases in ongo ing histoI-ieal proce ss c~ . Looking back at the beginning" or scientific psychology, it appear:-. that there must have been a con ,ll ict between the intuitive and taken-for-12ranted knowl­ edge (the archetypal image ufwhat is human, the linguistic and cultural knowl­ edge, and the knowledge about indi viduals) and the idea or an experimental sci ence. Gradu ally, it became clear that a safe way to do defensible psyeh olog­ ica,] experiments is by means oj' what is referred to as the RCT design. This 3110\\ s one to ignore the challenge of the four mcntioncd obst;leles. Irthe rend erin g or tile naturc or psychological phenomena ~i\('n above is tme. thl' n the consequences of'eontinuing to usc the RCT design would appear to be as follows: nothing similar to psychological laws wIll turn up, and the

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findi ngs will continue to be in the form of, for the 1110st part.'1l1all differences and smal l correlations. The difTerences and correlations \\'tli be derivable from, and therefore explained by, the shared meaning systems that arc already known, at least implicitly. Hence, no genuinely new knowledge will emerge. Also , the observed dit'ferenees and eorrclations will have lillie practical use . rom the perspective of the practitioner the eOITela tions and differences arc generally t00;;l11all to be ofmueh hclp compared to all the substantial infor­ mation onc hJ .~ about a Glse. The traditional argument that the experimental results ca n have theoretical impol1anee is also llluch weakened when we wke into considcration the four characteristie~ of psycho'iogi eal processes . Taken together they mcan thaI th ere can be no comprchensive and stable predictive theoric~. We must regard the fIndings as oute om e~ of an indefinitely high num­ ber of interacting factors, rcCerring to irreversibk potentially unstable pro e esse .~, and, to the extent that there is regularity, derivable from the shared meaning systems, Psychology is, thereforc, a domain that is quite inhospitable to the traditional type of empirical research and associated thcorizin!,!. This docs not mean that one cannot find local and tempora l statistical regu'laritics that can be useful for practical. for example socio-political, purposes. For ex ampl e, one might investigalc whether establishing soccer teams in high chools in a givcn country at a givcn time leads to a decline in drug use. However. such research is not aimed at advancing the science of psychology, but s hould be financed for its expected immediate practical ut ility. Psychological practice, on the other hand, involves a maximal reliance on what we all know about being human, and on the shared meaning sy~t e ms (language and culturc), as wcll as on intensive study of the individual pcrsons in thcir surrounding eirculllstances. In spite of' Ihe "scicntif':e"-looking features in sOllle practitioners' work, such as the use of i'lventories, tests, and manual­ directed tcchniquc:;. I think there is alwa ys a special attitude th(lt ebaractcrize the competent practitioner. It derives from the personal encounter with the other person , taking in the individual other, and his or her surroundings, The encounter involves cthieal commitlTlcnt, and necessitates an crrort 10 lay aside stereotypes. prejudices, theorie~, ready-made categories, and prcdictions. This comparative openness and attempt 11 0 / to jump to conclusions is , by defInition, nccessary, in order to eneountcr and assimilate thc uniqucness or the otilcr individual and the accompan yi ng eirclllllstanees. Therefo re. what L:haraclcri / es the competent practitioner is 1/,,/ the possessi on of vast amounts of' general knowledge applicable to eaeh new case. It is, on the contrary, an ability to discard and push into the background previous experiences and to listen to what duc~ 110/ fit into one's pre-existin g categories. The altitudc of the psychol ogical practitioner has so me similarities to the alli­ rude llf surveyurs, in that they also ealUlot rely on prcvious experience and do not tly tll catcgorize and predict thc geographical terrain. Instead, they take into ~leeOlln( the unique geographical formations cneOlUltered and rely only 1)Il geom­ etry (trigonometry) in mapping thclll and orienting thcmseh cs. The surveyor

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docs not tly to ass~mble data to build predictive theories about ten-ains, and is unin­ terested in the "average" terrain_ Simil3r1y, the psychological practitioner should not believe that he or she can know from empirically based theory what something means to a person or what a person will do next, and should not be intercsted in the average persoll in the average situatioll_ The only realistic approach is to get to knO\v as closely as possible the given unique persons in their actual unique cireul1lstam;es. This attitude takes for granted the multitude of intluem:c ..; on the persoll. Al so_the irreversibility of proL'ess is continuously recugnized: ifshe tells him thl~, ~hl' will have told him this, and it can never be untold. The e,'lllinuous reliance on the sharcd mGJrling systel11 (language and culture) is so self-evident that it is mostly invisible. Words and sentencL'S mean what tlley mean and traffic rules are what they are. Without participation in these shared meaning systems, a psychologi st becollles helpless and disoricnled and no profcs~ional work is poss ible. Finally, uniqueness is taken for granted and acknowledged each time one gds to know a new person. The preceding considerations can be SUl11ll1arized as follows, Profess ional psychol og ical practice ao; it ha.'l unfolded 0\ cr the bst cenhlry has bcen formed with an ethical commitment to th.: clienh and a constant clllpha~is on e ffective­ ness. Thcrefore, t.he resulting tOl1n of practice, empha~i!ing the concrete and uniquc, and avoiding rigid plinciples, techniques, and prediction~, should be heeded and taken seriously. 1\ special kind of knowledgc has emerged frolll the rr;lctical work , namely a generali zed knowledge of Sfl'l1ff'gy rather than of COII­ fellf. Thi,s is a fundalllentally di fferent 3ttirudc fi'OIll that of the rc!>carcher. People ' " psychological rroccsscs arc indefinitely variable and ever changing and cannot be understood and predicted by asscmbling group -level dat~1. On the o!ller hand, practitioners have learned much about ho\l' to deal with persons in order to be of help, and we can hope to rel~ne and. dc\elop this knowledge. Part orit is universal and. derivable from our primordial knowledgc of Humo sapi­ ells. ran uf it is derivable from the given linguistic/cultural meaning system, and the remainder is adjusted to indivi dual circumstances (sec also Bergner, 2006). As 3n illustration, let mc brien y describe one aspect of the strategic knowl­ edge rcl i,ed on by practitioners. We know that persons feel vulnerable (Axiom 8: Vulncrabilit y- P thinks (hat 0 can do something good and something bad to P) . As a profess ional psychologist, you wam a client to trust you, (hat is, to think that you will do good things and no! do bad things to him or her. In order to achieve this yOll must, among other things, treat the person with I'especf, c al'e. and l(17c!el'sfalldillg. To treM a person with respect is to treat that person rightl y, that is, in thc way the person is entitled to he treated in hi" or her society. To tre3t a person clund, J. (2004) . Dialuglles abullt a lIell ' pS,l'ciwlvgy. Chagrin Fall s, OH : Lin, Institutc Publications . Smilh . J.A ., Harr~, R., & Vun L.3n gc·nho ve. L. (Eds .). (1995a). Rl!thillkillf!. p,l,l'cI/Ul­ (Jg:l'. London : S,lge , Smit h. .I.. in psychology. A lIIl!riWII JOllmal of P,I\'c hol ogy, 11 5, 103- 11 8. Wal l:Jeh. !VI .A. , & Wallach . L. (1 998). When ex periment ~ serve lillie pllrp ()~ c : Misguided rC :'C' ~lrch in main stream psychology, Tli eor l' & p.\'\'c/w /ug..1'. 8, 183 - 194, Wier7bicku , A. (1996) , Sell/ulltics: Prillles /lnt! IlIlil'C'},I'IJ /.I'. Ne w York : Oxfo rd niversity P rc s~. J;\I\ S ~ ll nS ll 'l'[) is Pro fc::.!>or Emcritus of Ps y ~llOl o gy 3t the Univcrsiry of Os lo. No rway, He has done rC' ~ c;]rch on cogniti ve dcvcklpmcnt. common­ scn se psyc hology, and the found31ion s of psychology. He is al so a c linical psyeh ulogist "nd is currcntl y doing rcscarc h on psychotherapy. Among his books f)RI S~ : Institute of P~yc holo gy , Un ivcr., iry o r Os lo. 1094 BI indern, 031 7 Olo lo, Nu rwBY· remail: j an.smcds III nd (~ p sy ko log i. u io. no]