The behavioral, experiential and conceptual dimensions of psychological phenomena: Body, soul and spirit

Abstract

Abstract Psychological phenomena can be described on different levels of analysis: on an experiential level (e.g., what is it like to be attentive); and on a behavioral level (e.g., how does it become evident that someone is attentive). In the following, we outline how the widely prevalent focus on exclusively behavioral characteristics is insufficient and how our understanding of psychological phenomena can be enriched by taking the qualitative dimension of experience into consideration. We then scrutinize components of this experiential realm and report how it provides the stage for a third level: conceptual insight (e.g., what types or phases of attention can be distinguished). We subsequently look at the history of science and relate the behavioral aspect to the material realm (the realm of the body); the experiential aspect to what has been historically referred to as the soul realm; and the conceptual aspect to what has been historically referred to as the spirit realm. Finally, we add a first-person trial to delineate these concepts further and scrutinize them in light of contemporary theory-building.