Mainstream Psychology Research Articles

Hermeneutic Realism: Toward a Truly Meaningful Psychology

This article presents a brief introduction to a hermeneutic realist approach to psychology, outlining its differences from mainstream psychology in its conceptions of context, change, and possibility. The term “hermeneutic” indicates that psychology's subject matter (e.g., behavior, cognition) is understood more as contextually constituted meanings than as the conventional notion of self-contained objects. The “realism” portion of this phrase implies that this understanding does not devolve to a relativism or subjectivism, but it is grounded in the reality of the world. Hermeneutic realism is not considered a replacement to psychology's current approach but rather is conceptualized and discussed as a needed supplement that leads to new psychological understandings, including new approaches to theory, method, and practice.

The subject of the neuropsy-sciences stripped bare by her bachelors, even

In this paper I question whether the plea for depathologisation and the regaining of our expropriated subjectivity from its psy and neuro-colonization is, in fact, not itself enmeshed with the notion of some real core of the human being, and thus amenable to some or another Academic discipline and praxis. Critics of mainstream (neuro)psychology could unwittingly, then, join the strong but unacknowledged undercurrent in today’s neuropsy-discourses to restore the subject as a fully fleshed-out agent; one who is situated beyond pathology, beyond abnormal and normal. I juxtapose this observation with critical readings of an artistic project looking to revalue subjectivity in the aftermath of a mining disaster, and the popular Theory of Mind-approach. In conclusion, I argue that an understanding of the subject as caught between subjectivation and de-subjectivation (where subjectivity becomes a social and a political issue) could allow us to rethink the terms of normality and pathology.

Interview: Does Complex Trauma Exist? A “Long View” Based on Science and Service in the Trauma Field

I’m very happy to share some thoughts about this topic. For a long time I have been following the professional dialogue about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychological trauma, domestic violence, interpersonal violence, and then the emergence of a condition called complex trauma. I believe that one of the very first places that Judy Herman discussed complex trauma was in my living room in Brookline, as part of the Harvard Study Group on Trauma. That group comprised 25 to 30 people who consistently attended a monthly meeting in Boston, starting in the mid-1980s and continuing until my sabbatical year in 1993 when, for a variety of reasons, it never picked up again. This group gathered people who were doing some of the foundational work on psychological trauma. It included colleagues in Boston at many of the key academic and clinical institutions, some who were visiting Boston for one reason or another, and some whom we would invite from elsewhere in the country to talk with our group about concepts of psychological trauma. Over time the people who comprised the Harvard Study Group on Trauma and those who presented to that group emerged as some of the leading figures in the field, including some who defined key concepts related to psychological trauma. Initially, the group met at the home of Henry Murray’s1 wife (Nina). Their home was in the shadows of Harvard’s William James Hall–a particularly wonderful place to have a conversation about a disorder that was not well-accepted by mainstream psychology and psychiatry. Bessel van der Kolk also hosted the group at times in his beautiful South End row house. One evening Judy Herman spoke about her concerns about the issues of PTSD and the very different patient population she was seeing at the Victims of Violence program at Cambridge Hospital. Her take on it was that many of the people who were given diagnoses of personality disorders were really people who suffered considerable domestic violence, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, and neglect in ongoing ways. The nature of the distinction was that these were ongoing psychological traumas–ongoing oppression, ongoing stress associated with living in abusive situations, whether it was the spouse, or the parents, or the uncle, or whomever. It was this ongoing nature of it, the sense that “there is no safety,” “no place where anything is safe,” that I think led her to think a bit differently about what conventionally was called personality disorders (borderline being one, but not the only one). She gave birth to the notion of complex trauma and it received a great deal of attention from lots of people at the time who were seeing patients with this same set of problems. I would characterize the patients being discussed as those with dysregulated emotion, cognition, and behavior. The common thread was the existence of this background of ongoing, abusive environments. Interestingly, the syndrome

The Openness is There.

The Openness is There.

A look back at "where have all the behaviorists gone?".

The paper in the title (Branch & Malagodi, 1980) was written at a time when behavior analysis and behaviorism were being declared dead in the mainstream psychology literature, and at a time when the program in which I served, the Behavior Analysis program (then called the Experimental Analysis of Behavior) at the University of Florida, was going through difficult times. The paper covered several points, and in this retrospective account I return to them to see if they still have relevance more than 30 years later.

Mathematical creativity and giftedness: a commentary on and review of theory, new operational views, and ways forward

In this commentary we synthesize and critique three papers in this special issue of ZDM (Leikin and Lev; Kattou, Kontoyianni, Pitta-Pantazi, and Christou; Pitta-Pantazi, Sophocleous, and Christou). In particular we address the theory that bridges the constructs of “mathematical creativity” and “mathematical giftedness” by reviewing the related literature. Finally, we discuss the need for a reliable metric to assess problem difficulty and problem sequencing in instruments that purport to measure mathematical creativity, as well as the need to situate mathematics education research within an existing canon of work in mainstream psychology.

Rethinking Mindfulness in the Therapeutic Relationship

Mindfulness in the Buddhist context does not stand alone as a tool or technique to reduce and relieve stress. On the contrary, mindfulness is seen as a part of a contextualized set of attitudes, exercises, and practices that are employed to facilitate a deeper understanding of the illusion of a solid and separate self, which is believed to be a fundamental source of suffering. This paper explores how a contextually embedded and culturally informed understanding of mindfulness and the spiritual nature of this practice may help enhance therapeutic presence and the therapeutic relationship. First, it presents a review of the empirical literature discussing therapists’ mindfulness and the therapeutic relationship with an emphasis on the therapists’ presence. Second, it offers a critique of how mindfulness has often been understood in a reductionist fashion as an attentional technique instead of a mode of being. Third, it articulates a contextually embedded view of mindfulness, including its inherent transformational aspects. This paper argues for a revision of the current understanding of mindfulness in mainstream psychology, particularly in relation to the therapeutic relationship.

Triguna as personality concept: Guidelines for empirical research

In the East triguna is considered an important personality concept. Compared to western models of personality, triguna is less popular globally. Even in the East, research on triguna is scarce. Interest in the area peaked in the 1970s when theoretical works led to the development of several questionnaires. However, practical use of these tools failed to take off. Triguna research remains sporadic, strongly suggesting a lack of channelized work. The new tools, which were developed are also not much used. Apart from psychology, in recent times, management research has taken to investigating triguna and other related constructs like karma yoga. Considering the current situation of triguna research, if guidelines were drawn up, researchers would have a direction to guide their studies, at least for coming few years and be able to contribute incrementally to the field. This paper is presented in light of these considerations. We discuss the concept of triguna, characteristics of a successful personality theory and challenges in triguna research, in light of which we propose a set of eight guidelines to assist future research in the field. In addition, we discuss some of the new tools emerging from mainstream psychology, which may also be used in triguna research. Hopefully, we may look forward to some major landmarks of evidences for the triguna construct, over the coming period of time.

Additive conjoint measurement and the resistance toward falsifiability in psychology

The history of the past four decades of the theory and application of additive conjoint measurement (ACM) is characterized by vivid developments of its theoretical foundation (cf. Luce and Tukey, 1964; Krantz et al., 1971, 2006; Narens, 1974), industrious developments of statistical and computational implementations (cf. Karabatsos and Ullrich, 2002; Karabatsos and Sheu, 2004; Karabatsos, 2005; Myung et al., 2005) and heated debates about its applicability and significance in psychology (cf. Michell, 1997, 2009; Borsboom and Mellenbergh, 2004; Barrett, 2008; Borsboom and Scholten, 2008; Kyngdon, 2008a; Trendler, 2009). What started as a promising foundation to solve the everlasting debate about the quantitative nature of psychological attributes (Ferguson et al., 1939) ended in perseverative debates with very little transfer to mainstream psychological science still being dominated by structural equation modeling (SEM) and item response theory (IRT). After reading the aforementioned articles, and comparing their implications with the day-to-day business of mainstream psychological science, even an unbiased reader would certainly agree with Cliff (1992) that ACM was a “… revolution that never happened” (p. 186). It is not the aim of this article, to discredit the efforts of mathematical psychology and proponents of ACM in particular. I just want to address the naive but relevant question why ACM as a stringent way to formalize and to test the requirements of quantitative measurement in psychology has not been embraced by mainstream psychology as a means to an end to test what they always claim: that most of the attributes (e.g., intelligence and personality factors) are quantitative. An attribute possessing a quantitative structure is required to satisfy the three conditions of ordinality (transitivity, antisymmetry, and strong connexity) and the six conditions of additivity (associativity, commutativity, monotonicity, solvability, positivity, and the Archimedean condition; cf. Michell, 1990, p. 52f.). Most of these conditions are testable hypotheses but I have never seen any empirical test in psychological articles before data were analyzed with SEM or IRT models, which already assume the quantitative structure of the attributes under consideration as argued below. Somewhere during my psychology studies at the university I learned that psychology is an empirical science and that there is therefore no room for claims that should just be believed. However, given the assumed but almost never tested quantitative nature of most of the psychological attributes as reflected in factor analysis, SEM and IRT models, I must have missed or misunderstood something.

Triguna as personality concept: Guidelines for empirical research

In the East triguna is considered an important personality concept. Compared to western models of personality, triguna is less popular globally. Even in the East, research on triguna is scarce. Interest in the area peaked in the 1970s when theoretical works led to the development of several questionnaires. However, practical use of these tools failed to take off. Triguna research remains sporadic, strongly suggesting a lack of channelized work. The new tools, which were developed are also not much used. Apart from psychology, in recent times, management research has taken to investigating triguna and other related constructs like karma yoga. Considering the current situation of triguna research, if guidelines were drawn up, researchers would have a direction to guide their studies, at least for coming few years and be able to contribute incrementally to the field. This paper is presented in light of these considerations. We discuss the concept of triguna, characteristics of a successful personality theory and challenges in triguna research, in light of which we propose a set of eight guidelines to assist future research in the field. In addition, we discuss some of the new tools emerging from mainstream psychology, which may also be used in triguna research. Hopefully, we may look forward to some major landmarks of evidences for the triguna construct, over the coming period of time.

Risorgimento: A history of Counselling Psychology in Britain

Content and FocusThis paper examines the historical context which gave birth to the Division of Counselling Psychology. It argues that this was a period of economic, social and political crisis and that there are similarities with the contemporary situation in the UK. It seeks to explore and explain the apparent contradiction of the fact that these conditions should be associated with an organisation whose values stem from a belief in personal fulfilment and growth. The contradiction is explained by reference to the suggestion that crisis at a social level and trauma at a personal level are the conditions in which the potential for change is strongest.The factors allowing the new body to flourish are listed through an analogy drawn with the Italian Risorgimento (revival) which culminated in an independent Italy in 1861. The need for a mythical flag behind which to unite is examined through the concept of a narrative arcConclusionsThe narratives of the scientist-practitioner and the reflective practitioner are crucial to understanding the development of the discipline. The former allowed counselling psychology to locate itself within the broad mainstream of psychology while the latter offered a distinctive identity which articulated the special quality of counselling psychology. The paper concludes by listing the challenges faced as the discipline moves forward into the future and reiterates the historical truth articulated by Karl Marx that humans make history (have the power of agency) but do not operate in circumstances of their own choosing.

Review Essay: Towards Cultural Psychology of Religion by J. E. Belzen

Jacob Belzen spends the first two-thirds of his 2010 book doing two things: (1) developing a cogent critique of the presuppositions that underlie mainstream psychology, especially as regards the study of religion, and (2) promoting greater use of what he calls a “cultural psychology.” The last third presents a number of religious case studies, all from the Netherlands, that demonstrate the value of cultural psychology. Although Belzen emphasizes “embodiment” in these studies, his results suggest that religion is often a “performance” for particular audiences. Finally, the applicability of Belzen’s approach to religions outside the Western tradition is discussed.

Scientific Communication in Clinical Psychology: Examining Patterns of Citations and References

Previous studies of scientific communication used citation mapping, establishing psychology as a 'hub science' from which many other fields draw information. Within psychology, the clinical and counselling discipline is a major 'knowledge broker'. This study analyzed scientific communication among three major subdisciplines of clinical psychology-the cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic and humanistic schools of thought-by examining patterns of references within and citations to 305 target articles published in leading journals of these subdisciplines. The results suggest that clinical researchers of each theoretical orientation engage in more insular scientific communication than an integrationist would find desirable and that cognitive-behavioural articles are more closely connected to mainstream psychology and related fields. Eclectic practitioners draw on several different theoretical orientations to inform their practice; as such, they should be interested in understanding the patterns of scientific communication within and across theoretical orientations. Practitioners work in a variety of different mental health settings, with a variety of other professionals in psychology-related fields, and should be interested in how much influence their particular theoretical orientation has on the work of colleagues. Many practitioners rely on new, evidence-based research to inform their work. The results of this study provide these individuals with an objective measure of the influence of empirical work in different areas of clinical psychology.

Qualitative research as methodical hermeneutics.

The proportion of publications of qualitative research in mainstream psychology journals is small. Thus, in terms of this important criterion, despite its recent rapid growth, qualitative research is marginalized in psychology. The author suggests that contributing to this situation is the lack of a coherent and unifying methodology of qualitative research methods that elucidates their credibility. He groups the many qualitative research methods into 3 main kinds, then applies to them 4 propositions offered as such a methodology: (1) Qualitative research is hermeneutical, entailing application of the method of the hermeneutic circle to text about experience and/or action. (2) Implicit in the use of the hermeneutic circle method is the activity of educing and articulating the meaning of text, an activity that modifies and interacts with C. S. Peirce's (1965, 1966) logical operations of abduction, theorematic deduction, and induction. (3) The cycling of these 4 moments enables demonstration, achieved rhetorically, of the validity of the understandings resulting from the exegesis of the text under study. (4) This demonstrative rhetoric is enhanced when researchers disclose reflexively those aspects of their perspectives they judge to have most relevant bearing on their understandings. The author compares abduction as formulated here with other recent uptakes of it. As an installment on the generality of the methodology, he explores its fit with the descriptive phenomenological psychological method, conversation analysis, and thematic analysis.

On Certain Similarities Between Mainstream Psychology and the Writings of B. F. Skinner

selected writings of B. F. Skinner are compared to 5 current topics in mainstream psychology, including the role of the unconscious, human language, the role of dispositions in psychology, human perceptions of conformity and bias, and mindfulness. The striking similarities between Skinner’s work and these 5 current topics support Richelle’s (1993) prediction that psychologists may eventually discover that Skinner was a forerunner in the theory and practice of psychology.

The Role of Music in Everyday Life: Current Directions in the Social Psychology of Music

AbstractMusic is a crucial element of everyday life. People spend hours listening to it and billions of dollars buying it. Yet despite the pervasiveness of music, mainstream social‐personality psychology has hardly given any attention to this universal social phenomenon. Why is music important to people? What role does music play in everyday life? This article reviews research in fields outside mainstream psychology concerned with the social and psychological factors that influence how people experience and use music in their daily lives. The research in this area shows that music can have considerable effects on cognition, emotion, and behavior. It also indicates that people use music to serve various functions, from emotion regulation to self‐expression to social bonding. Research in this emerging field reveals how social‐personality psychology can inform our understanding of music, and in doing so it highlights the real‐world relevance of mainstream theory and research.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and mainstream psychology: analysis and evaluation of an unresolved hostility

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) is widely used as a staff-development tool in the business and voluntary sectors. Its Psychological Type approach is found to be a valuable aid to understanding self and others and thus to enhancing effective team-working. This continuing and growing popularity is surprising in view of the disdain with which MBTI® has long been regarded by the professional psychology community. The grounds of this hostility are here examined, revealing a remarkable convergence between the conceptual frameworks of MBTI® and its more orthodox counterparts in personality psychology, as well as several significant differences. The Type and Trait approaches both conclude that there are just four principal and independent components of the normal personality, and are in close agreement in identifying these four components. The differences are principally in the different theoretical frameworks of the Type and Trait approaches. An evaluation of these differences suggests that a harmonization would be achieved if each side of the argument could relinquish one of its cherished theoretical underpinnings. Specifically the Psychological Type community should abandon its insistence that every individual is constitutionally either, for example, an Extravert or an Introvert; and advocates of the Trait approach should abandon the morally evaluative stance that, for example, Extraversion is a desirable quality which introverts sadly lack in adequate measure. The Psychological Type view of Introversion, for example, as an equally positive intrinsic quality as Extraversion is urged as less crude and more authentic.

Spooks and spoofs

This article describes the relations between academic psychology and psychical research in Britain during the inter-war period, in the context of the fluid boundaries between mainstream psychology and both psychical research and popular psychology. Specifically, the involvement with Harry Price of six senior academic psychologists: William McDougall, William Brown, J. C. Flugel, Cyril Burt, C. Alec Mace and Francis Aveling, is described. Personal, metaphysical and socio-historical factors in their collaboration are discussed. It is suggested that the main reason for their mutual attraction was their common engagement in a delicate balancing act between courting popular appeal on the one hand and the assertion of scientific expertise and authority on the other. Their interaction is typical of the boundary work performed at this transitional stage in the development of psychology as a discipline.

Is Mainstream Psychological Research “Womanless” and “Raceless”? An Updated Analysis

In the late 20th century, mainstream psychological research was accused of being “womanless” and “raceless” by excluding women and members of racial-ethnic minority groups and by interpreting their experiences as deviant from White male norms. The present article provides an updated analysis of the state of psychological research by examining research published in 2007 in eight prominent journals across four subdisciplines (N = 255). Two types of data were examined: (1) gender and racial-ethnic representation at the levels of editor, senior author, and participant, and (2) the presence of biased assumptions in reporting tendencies. Representation was interpreted in relation to relevant baselines drawn from U.S. data. Women and members of racial-ethnic minority groups do not appear to be underrepresented as editors in mainstream psychology. However, women continue to be underrepresented as senior authors, and members of racial-ethnic minority groups continue to be underrepresented as research participants. Furthermore, studies using predominately male or White samples (vs. female or racial-ethnic minority samples) were less likely to indicate participant gender or race-ethnicity in the title and marginally less likely to provide a rationale for including participants of only one social group, consistent with the notion that reporting tendencies within mainstream psychological research continue to reflect assumptions that men and Whites are more typical members of the category “human” than are women and racial-ethnic minorities. These findings indicate that mainstream psychology has not yet reached social equity and that efforts to increase diversity and decrease subtle biases should continue to be supported and funded.

Revisiting the Issue of Influential Sources in the Integration of Psychology and Theology: More than a Decade Summary

Building upon the work of Jones, Ripley, Kurusu, and Worthington, Jr. (1998), we identified the most influential books and articles within the integration literature in 1985–1994, 1995–2004, and 2005–2010. We tallied references within the Journal of Psychology and Christianity and the Journal of Psychology and Theology and identified trends. There were differential citation rates across the three time periods for both articles and books. Consistently, the most frequently cited works were cited less often in the first time period compared to the following time periods. The number of edited volumes and sensitivity to knowing and doing integration well have both increased. Psychodynamic theory provided fertile soil for the growth of integration. The growing interest in forgiveness has been reflected within the integration literature. Mainstream psychology has increasingly applied spiritualities to practice. Finally, the emotional atmosphere on the boundaries of psychology and Christianity seems to have undergone some change.