Interactionistic Psychology: A Fourth Force?

Abstract

It is extraordinarily difficult to predict with any degree of certainty the fucure course of scientific events. Problematic also is even the accurate assessment of present changes within a field of professional activity, sometimes referred to as the 'cutting edge'. Nevertheless, an attempt is made here to note a new trend with research and practice in applied psychology. There are loyal critics of psychology who espouse that the field is misdirected (Sarason, 1981) and suffers from a crisis of disunity (Staats, 1983). The misdirectedness is seen as a result of having an overly focused in vacuo conceptualization of the individual, while the disunity view involves the lack of a common paradigm (Staats, 1983). This author believes that the crisis has passed because a new direction has subtly emerged whereby the individual is now being studied and treated more in relation to environmental presses. It was accidentally noticed that there is emerging and ac greater frequency within the literature a number of keywords associated with the rootword interaction: perspective (Howe, 1983), patterns (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967), viewpoint (Ysseldyke & Mirkin, 1982), research, etc. Situational and ecological are also prominently linked with interactionism. It may be too soon to define clearly interactionistic psychology, but a new paradigm seems to be emerging. If humanistic psychology was the third force (following psychoanalytic and behavioristic), then interactionistic might be the fourth.