THE CONCEPT OF HETERO-LEVEL INTEGRATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

The article justifies the concept of different-level integration of psychological knowledge, defines the purpose of it development and presents the methodological-theoretical guidance for it. The concept development is based on the general scientific principles of integrity, activity, development, on the humanistic methodological orientation (G. Ball) combined with the analysis of modern studies on psychological knowledge integration. The concept must meet the following criteria: logical consistency, internal coherence of its conceptual positions; sensitivity to the modern socio-cultural and cognitive situations, it must use ideas and methods from other integrating approaches and have strengthened explanatory capacity. We identified the tasks for the concept development. We put forward the idea of different levels of psychological science and discussed the differences in integration processes at these levels. We identified the ways facilitating integration processes on the above mentioned levels and substantiated creating a “matrix” of research methods, improving the existing models of psychological theories and heterogenous psychological phenomenology. The task to promote the formation of researchers’ integrative views was posed. The concept consists of the following positions. The integration processes at different levels of psychological science have their peculiarities; in particular, integration processes can differ by the ratio of spontaneity and controllability. The integration processes can be facilitated from the top (i.e. from the meta-theoretical point of view) by: a) creation of a general multidimensional meta-theoretical space (the matrix of theories) and arrangement of different theories in it, taking into account their epistemological coordinates, explanatory potential; b) creation of a matrix with  research methods; c) construction of a model of the heterogeneous psychological phenomenology; d) determination of complex relationships between space-models of theories, methods  and  the psychological phenomenology. The integration processes can be facilitated from the bottom (i.e. from the point of view of the primary study of a particular psychological problem) by: the determination of a problem field in the modeled multidimensional space of the psychological phenomenology; considering the explanatory potential of different theories for a particular problem; using the resources (constructive components) of different theories, approaches (and their methods) for this problem research. Researchers’ integrative dispositions can be expanded, in particular, by activating their reflection on the factors forming their individual scientific views. In this context, it is important to analyze the dependence of a researcher’s individual cognitive “habitus” (according to P. Bourdieu): 1) on the cognitive trends of the epistemic community to which the researcher belongs, 2) on the dominant paradigm of the scientific field, 3) on the syntagmatic experience of trans-disciplinary research. &nbsp