Subjectivity of Method

Why psychology needs armchair scholarship

Sabou Rani Stocker

10.12.2024

https://www.soscisurvey.de/brainbehavior/

Teo’s understanding of psychology

  • Teo’s understanding of psychology

  • Averting the Crisis

  • Subjectivity vs. Globality

  • Armchair psychology

  • Integrations

  • Self-Reflection

  • Conclusion

Teo’s “Axioms”

  1. The subject matter of psychology is subjectivity as the totum of first-person human somato-psychological life.
  2. The totum of first-person human somato-psychological life cannot be understood by subdividing, only by integrating.
  3. Psychology is inherently self-reflective.
  4. Psychology needs to reintegrate its subdivided subject matter and research landscape.

Do we share Teo’s understanding of psychology?

The traditional methodological apparatus disguises the ontic quality of its objects/ events and concepts, whereby a complex technological jargon and practice, the usage of machines, and the rhetoric of science, simulate a natural science, and psychology becomes a hyper-science that pretends to be a science.

Teo, 2024 (p. 352)

Terminology

Definition 1 (Ontologial / Ontic) the philosophical study of being. It refers to your view of reality and to what extent it exists ‘out there’, to be captured through research. Ontology is concerned with what is true or real.

Open.edu

Definition 2 (Epistemic) ‘theory of knowledge’. It refers to the principles of what can be known and how you can know it; that is, how you can find out about it.

Open.edu

Definition 3 (Representational Psychology) A viewpoint which focuses on representing the reality through methodology as closely as possible.

Teo, 2019

Definition 4 (Nonrepresentational Psychology) A viewpoint which focuses on dynamic processes and experiences such as relations, performances, backgrounds and affects.

Gergen, 2015

Averting the Crisis

  • Teo’s understanding of psychology

  • Averting the Crisis

  • Subjectivity vs. Globality

  • Armchair psychology

  • Integrations

  • Self-Reflection

  • Conclusion

Averting the Crisis!

Is psychology in crisis?

Averting the Crisis!

What does the future look like where psychology is no longer in a (theory) crisis?

Or - if someone does not agree - why is psychology not (no longer) in a crisis?

Averting the Crisis!

What does the future look like where psychology is no longer in a (theory) crisis?

Arguments from previous sessions

  • We can integrate knowledge acquired through different theories (Newell, 1973)
  • We should answer questions, not create more, with our theories (Newell, 1973)
  • We have data that corresponds to theory (Gigerenzer, 1998; Oberauer & Lewandowsky, 2019)
  • Theories predict happenings with a high posterior probability (\(P(T|H)\) and \(P(H|D)\)) (Oberauer & Lewandowsky, 2019)
  • Our theories are inference tickets (Borsboom, 2013)
  • Our theory can make precise point predictions for individual’s behaviors (Popov, 2023)
  • (…)

Averting the Crisis!

Why are we not there yet?

Arguments from previous sessions

  • We use surrogates (one-word explanation, redescription, dichotomies, data fitting) for theories (Gigerenzer, 1998)
  • We use data without theory (Borsboom, 2013)
  • We use weak theories but test them as if they were strong (Oberauer & Lewandowsky, 2019)
  • We use imprecise theories (“verbal” theories) (Navarro, 2015; 2021; Smaldino, 2017, etc.)
  • (…)

Subjectivity vs. Globality

  • Teo’s understanding of psychology

  • Averting the Crisis

  • Subjectivity vs. Globality

  • Armchair psychology

  • Integrations

  • Self-Reflection

  • Conclusion

We need to take subjectivity (i.e. every human is individual in their own context and with their own history) into account when trying to build psychological theories.

Subjectivity vs. Globality

Are our theories failing because they do not take into account the individualism of being human?

Armchair psychology

  • Teo’s understanding of psychology

  • Averting the Crisis

  • Subjectivity vs. Globality

  • Armchair psychology

  • Integrations

  • Self-Reflection

  • Conclusion

Armchair psychology

What is armchair psychology?

Armchair theorizing, also known as armchair philosophizing or armchair scholarship, is an approach to providing new developments in a field that does not involve primary research or data collection – but instead analysis or synthesis of existent scholarship.

Wikipedia: Armchair theorizing

Qualitative methods (in the armchair) are capable to describe individual and context-dependent phenomena and are therefore suitable to build psychological theories.

Armchair psychology

Can armchair psychology help us out of the (theory) crisis?

To integrate our theories, we need to look at them in a nonrepresentational way (i.e. a context- and time-dependent way).

Integrations

  • Teo’s understanding of psychology

  • Averting the Crisis

  • Subjectivity vs. Globality

  • Armchair psychology

  • Integrations

  • Self-Reflection

  • Conclusion

Integrations

Do we need nonrepresentational theories to integrate them into a shared understanding of “the human brain and behavior”?

Because psychology is self-reflective and thus influences itself, we cannot omit context, as context (including history) is created by psychology and thus influences future psychology.

Self-Reflection

  • Teo’s understanding of psychology

  • Averting the Crisis

  • Subjectivity vs. Globality

  • Armchair psychology

  • Integrations

  • Self-Reflection

  • Conclusion

Self-reflection

(How) does the self-reflective nature of psychology help or hinder that?

Conclusion

  • Teo’s understanding of psychology

  • Averting the Crisis

  • Subjectivity vs. Globality

  • Armchair psychology

  • Integrations

  • Self-Reflection

  • Conclusion

https://www.soscisurvey.de/brainbehavior/?q=qnr2

Did we change our opinion in the course of the discussion?

…

and with that…

Thank you for your participation!!



Teo (2024): Subjectivity of Method - Discussion Session