Culture in psychology: Perennial problems and the contemporary methodological crisis

Abstract

IntroductionIncreasing dissatisfaction since the turn of the century with the methods and the corresponding theoretical thinking in psychology can be observed in international science (for example, Adair & Vohra, 2003; Essex & Smythe, 1999; Goertzen, 2008; Grace, 2001; Koltsova, 2007; Mazilov, 2006; Michell, 2003; Mironenko, 2007, 2008; Schwarz, 2009; Toomela, 2007; Valsiner, 2010; Yurevich, 1999, 2005; Zhdan, 2007; Zittoun, Gillespie, & Cornish, 2009).Common complaints about mainstream methodology are: fragments rather than wholes and relationships are analyzed; simple trait differences rather than complex psychological types are studied; data are not systematically related to complex theory; there is more concern with the accumulation of facts than with general theory (Toomela, 2007).Indeed, quantitative calculations of separate parameters without necessary interpretations, on the one hand, and blurred qualitative descriptions of particulars without generalizations, on the other hand, both of which are dominant in modern mainstream research, contribute to imbuing psychological science with a growing inventory of scattered facts that do not lead to genuine understanding of human personality and essential qualities of humans. As a result we find a decrease in the prestige of psychological science, which manifests itself in methodological selfassessment of its status as a as well as in a general decline in its value in public consciousness.Understanding the origins of the current situation and identifying the causes of the in contemporary psychology are necessary for finding a way out, just as treatment is impossible without a diagnosis and a remedy must address not only the symptoms but the causes of a disease.Is it still the same crisis?What are the origins of the actual in psychology? In the literature the idea of a permanent methodological in psychology, lasting since the 1890s, dominates. As has been noted many times (Veresov 2010; Yurevich 1999, 2005; and others), assessments of methodological crises in psychology given by William James, Karl Biihler, Lev Vygotsky, and others, do not differ much from modern assessments.Should we accept this view? Should we consider that, in psychological science for more than a century of its development, there were no changes radical enough to revise its general condition? New schools appeared; the norms and ideals of science changed in the course of the transformation of classical science into nonclassical and post-non-classical science; psychology became a mass profession, which significantly changed the ratio of academic to applied research and the structure of the professional community. Can it still be the same in psychology? It hardly seems possible.Moreover, the discourse of the renowned of the late 19th century to the first third of the 20th century was and still is focused on the problem of the disunity of psychological science, on the lack of mutual understanding and constructive cooperation by theoretical schools (Hyman & Sturm, 2008; Koltsova, 2007; Mazilov, 2006; Yurevich, 1999, 2005, 2009; Zhdan, 2007). The key idea of the old crisis discourse was that various schools and traditions in psychology lack cohesion and integrative efforts. As a result there is hardly any concept or theory that is accepted and understood in the same way by everybody in the scientific community. Psychological academia is scattered and disunited, and this condition stops it from progressing further. Epistemological problems, although discussed, were and are considered by most authors in the context of this disunity and are understood explicitly or implicitly as spawned by it.However, we believe that there is every reason to assume that disunity is no longer a problem for mainstream scientific psychology and that the of competing theories has largely been overcome (Mandler, 2011). …