Metatheoretical Concepts Research Articles

The concept of practice frameworks in correctional psychology: A critical appraisal

To develop rehabilitative treatment programs for persons who have committed crimes, correctional psychologists build theoretical structures that weld theoretical ideas about the causes of criminal behavior, theoretical perspectives about appropriate targets for correctional intervention and normative assumptions about crime and the aims of correctional intervention. To differentiate the tri-partite theoretical structure with which correctional program designers' work, Ward and Durrant (2021) introduce the metatheoretical concept of “practice frameworks”. In this paper, I describe and evaluate this concept, situating my analysis within the broader contexts of philosophical work on scientific theories and models and metatheoretical work on the structure of explanatory and intervention theories in correctional psychology.

Cocreating resilient hybrids: the bridging power of social enterprises' organizational logics

PurposeThis study investigates (1) the processes through which social enterprises develop resilient organizational logics and (2) the key resilience factors in the organizational logics of successful social enterprises. The organizational logic is conceptualized here as the dynamic system of roles, rules and social expectations that result from the organization's business model, impact model and organizational form.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts an inductive approach to identify emerging resilience factors and processes in an exemplary case of social entrepreneurship (a work integration venture). The longitudinal data collection on this case took place from 2011 to 2016, based on approximately 440 h of participant observation and 10 semi-structured interviews.FindingsThe inductive analysis suggests that social enterprises develop resilient organizational logics through multi-level recursive processes of bridging institutional work. These processes enable the development of an organizational logic that is internally robust while linking distant practices, needs and expectations. The authors conceptualize these characteristics into a novel construct, the organizational logic's bridging power, which is operationalizable through two dimensions (hybridity-based and cocreation-based bridging power) and five sub-dimensions.Research limitations/implicationsLike in all inductive studies, further research is needed to validate the proposed model. The new proposed construct “organizational logic's bridging power” is, interestingly, a meta-theoretical concept encouraging cross-fertilization between the literature on institutional logics and that on value cocreation.Originality/valueThe process development model proposed by this study highlights the importance of network-level institutional work for developing cocreation-based resilience. Furthermore, this study shows how institutional theories could be complemented with other bodies of knowledge in order to understand social enterprise resilience.

Applying Brenda Dervin's sense-making methodology to fan studies

Communication scholar Brenda Dervin created sense-making methodology (SMM), an approach for conducting interviews that draws on metatheoretical concepts such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and the humanistic approach to psychology. Since its formulation, SMM has been utilized across different disciplines through the development of interview protocols for both one-on-one interviews and focus groups. Among these studies are those that focus on people's engagement with media products or with each other in relation to media products. These SMM audience and reception studies demonstrate that the methodology can be useful for studying fans by bringing a more systematic, and thus quantifiable, approach to a phenomenological, interpretive study of fan behavior, be it mental, emotional, physical, or social. SMM would allow for studies that analyze how fans make sense of a situation involving their fandom and fan identity. After explaining what SMM is and how it has been used to study fans, a case study demonstrates how SMM may suggest a way to define being a fan and applying the concept of fandom beyond the traditional domains of sports, media, and popular culture.

Circular-Axial Representation of Human Evolution and Development in the Integral Theory: Educational Implications

Integral Theory has become a common framework in different contexts to integrate the diverse consciousness manifestations. The wide use and discussion of this meta-theory in the most varied fields encourage the possibility of proposing enhancements in their conceptualization. This paper presents, for instance, a complementary aspect, which is an alternative way of representation: the circular-axial. The article discusses why this new way of representation is appropriate to the meta-theoretical concepts and why it has some advantages compared to the more popular representation of the four quadrants. Although compatible with the traditional representation, we argue that it fits better with other concomitant theories, and at the same time is equally explicative of the Integral Theory basics. Once described in detail, the new way of representation helps in the clarification of the different manifestations of consciousness as they are explained by the holonic theory. This development provides new intuitions to holistic/integral educational approaches addressed to human evolution and development. Finally, it is useful to characterize their corresponding educational roles.

Data generation methods across the empirical sciences: differences in the study phenomena’s accessibility and the processes of data encoding

Data generation methods differ across the empirical sciences. Today’s physicists and engineers primarily generate data with automated technologies. Behavioural, psychological and social scientists explore phenomena that are not technically accessible (e.g., attitudes, social beliefs) or only in limited ways (e.g., behaviours) and therefore generate data primarily with persons. But human abilities are involved in any data generation, even when technologies are used and developed. This article explores concepts and methods of data generation of different sciences from transdisciplinary and philosophy-of-science perspectives. It highlights that empirical data can reveal information about the phenomena under study only if relevant properties of these phenomena have been encoded systematically in the data. Metatheoretical concepts and methodological principles are elaborated that open up new perspectives on methods of data generation across the empirical sciences, highlighting commonalities and differences in two pivotal points: (1) in the accessibility that various kinds of phenomena have for the persons generating the data and for the researchers, and (2), as a consequence thereof, in the processes involved in the encoding of information from these phenomena in the signs (symbols) used as data. These concepts and principles cut across establish method categorisations (e.g., human-generated versus instrument-generated data; quantitative versus qualitative methods), highlighting fundamental issues equally important in all sciences as well as essential differences. They also provide novel lines of argumentation that substantiate psychologists’ and social scientists’ increasing criticism of their own disciplines’ focus on standardised assessment methods and establish connections to concepts of data generation developed in metrology.

Disentangling the Dyadic Dance: Theoretical, Methodological and Outcomes Systematic Review of Mother-Infant Dyadic Processes.

Background: During the last decades, the research on mother-infant dyad has produced a great amount of data, methods and theories, which largely contributed to set a revolution in the way we look at developmental changes during infancy and childhood. Very different constructs depict the different aspects of the “dyadic dance” occurring between a mother and her infant; nonetheless, a comprehensive and consistent systematization of these concepts in a coherent theoretical landscape is still lacking.Aim: In the present work, we aim at disentangling the different theoretical and methodological definitions of 9 dyadic constructs and we highlight their effects on infants' and children developmental outcomes.Methods: A literature search has been conducted on three databases—PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science. Three different reviews are reported here: (1) a review on the theoretical definitions of dyadic constructs; (2) a review of operational definitions, settings and methods of dyadic processes; (3) a systematic review of dyadic processes' outcomes for infants' and children developmental trajectories.Results: Two constructs emerged as wide meta-theoretical concepts (reciprocity and mutuality) and seven described specific processes (attunement, contingency, coordination, matching, mirroring, reparation, synchrony). A global model resuming the relationships among different processes is reported, which highlights the emergence of two specific cycles of dyadic functioning (i.e., matching-mismatching-reparation-synchrony; contingency, coordination, attunement, mirroring). A comprehensive review of the adopted measures is also provided. Finally, all the processes provided significant contributions to infants' behavioral, cognitive, and socio-emotional development during the first 3 years of age, but limited research has been conducted on specific processes (e.g. reparation and mirroring).Conclusion: The present study provides an original research-grounded framework to consider the different nature of mother-infant dyadic processes within a unified dyadic eco-system. Different levels of evidence emerged for the role of diverse mother-infant dyadic processes on infants' and children development. Open questions and future research directions are highlighted.

O pojęciach, systemach pojęciowych i terminologii onomastycznej

On Concepts, Conceptual Systems and Terminology of OnomasticsThe main aim of this paper is to propose a terminological approach to the standardization of onomastic terminology. Attention is paid to the primary importance of conceptual systems and to the onomasiological approach typical of terminological work. Terminology is presented as a discipline devoted primarily to the study of concepts. Then the main concepts of terminology are discussed and the relations between a conceptual system and a terminological system are explained. An outline of the issue of conceptual systems of onomastics and of their internal structure is made. Then two important metatheoretical concepts are introduced and defined: 1) the concept of theoretical legitimacy of concepts and 2) the concept of economy of conceptual systems. In the final part of the article, several suggestions concerning the standardization of onomastic terminology are made: 1) terms referring to concepts belonging to separate conceptual series are not to be used interchangeably; 2) terms based on different roots (in the English onomastic terminology: -onym, -onymy, -onomastics, in the Polish terminology: -onim, -onimia, -onomastyka) are to be reserved respectively for the concept of a single (type of) proper name, for the concept of a set of proper names and for the concept of a specific onomastic discipline; 3) concepts used or newly introduced in a text are to be defined clearly in onomastic works, 4) onomasticians aiming for standardization of onomastic terminology should start their work by (re)constructing conceptual system(s) of onomastics and only then assign terms to concepts; 5) one completely unitary conceptual (and terminological) system of onomastics cannot be achieved due to the theoretical pluralism of the discipline; 6) the first goal of any conceptual and terminological standardization of onomastics is to define its range: should the standardization cover the concepts of philological or general onomastics? should it cover only empirical (descriptive) concepts or highly abstract theoretical concepts as well?

Meta-Theoretical Contributions to the Constitution of a Model-Based Didactics of Science

There is nowadays consensus in the community of didactics of science (i.e. science education understood as an academic discipline) regarding the need to include the philosophy of science in didactical research, science teacher education, curriculum design, and the practice of science education in all educational levels. Some authors have identified an ever-increasing use of the concept of ‘theoretical model’, stemming from the so-called semantic view of scientific theories. However, it can be recognised that, in didactics of science, there are over-simplified transpositions of the idea of model (and of other meta-theoretical ideas). In this sense, contemporary philosophy of science is often blurred or distorted in the science education literature. In this paper, we address the discussion around some meta-theoretical concepts that are introduced into didactics of science due to their perceived educational value. We argue for the existence of a ‘semantic family’, and we characterise four different versions of semantic views existing within the family. In particular, we seek to contribute to establishing a model-based didactics of science mainly supported in this semantic family.

What is Behaviour? And (when) is Language Behaviour? A Metatheoretical Definition

AbstractBehaviour is central to many fields, but metatheoretical definitions specifying the most basic assumptions about what is considered behaviour and what is not are largely lacking. This transdisciplinary research explores the challenges in defining behaviour, highlighting anthropocentric biases and a frequent lack of differentiation from physiological and psychical phenomena. To meet these challenges, the article elaborates a metatheoretical definition of behaviour that is applicable across disciplines and that allows behaviours to be differentiated from other kinds of phenomena. This definition is used to explore the phenomena of language and to scrutinise whether and under what conditions language can be considered behaviour and why. The metatheoretical concept of two different levels of meaning conveyed in human language is introduced, highlighting that language inherently relies on behaviours and that the content of what‐is‐being‐said, in and of itself, can constitute (interpersonal) behaviour under particular conditions. The analyses reveal the ways in which language meaningfully extends human's behavioural possibilities, pushing them far beyond anything enabled by non‐language behaviours. These novel metatheoretical concepts can complement and expand on existing theories about behaviour and language and contribute a novel piece of theoretical explanation regarding the crucial role that language has played in human evolution.

Conceiving "personality": Psychologist's challenges and basic fundamentals of the Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals.

Scientists exploring individuals, as such scientists are individuals themselves and thus not independent from their objects of research, encounter profound challenges; in particular, high risks for anthropo-, ethno- and ego-centric biases and various fallacies in reasoning. The Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals (TPS-Paradigm) aims to tackle these challenges by exploring and making explicit the philosophical presuppositions that are being made and the metatheories and methodologies that are used in the field. This article introduces basic fundamentals of the TPS-Paradigm including the epistemological principle of complementarity and metatheoretical concepts for exploring individuals as living organisms. Centrally, the TPS-Paradigm considers three metatheoretical properties (spatial location in relation to individuals' bodies, temporal extension, and physicality versus "non-physicality") that can be conceived in different forms for various kinds of phenomena explored in individuals (morphology, physiology, behaviour, the psyche, semiotic representations, artificially modified outer appearances and contexts). These properties, as they determine the phenomena's accessibility in everyday life and research, are used to elaborate philosophy-of-science foundations and to derive general methodological implications for the elementary problem of phenomenon-methodology matching and for scientific quantification of the various kinds of phenomena studied. On the basis of these foundations, the article explores the metatheories and methodologies that are used or needed to empirically study each given kind of phenomenon in individuals in general. Building on these general implications, the article derives special implications for exploring individuals' "personality", which the TPS-Paradigm conceives of as individual-specificity in all of the various kinds of phenomena studied in individuals.

The Italian Economists and the Crisis of the Nineteenseventies. The Rise and Fall of the "Conflict Paradigm"

Between 1969 and the early nineteen-eighties a unique parabola took place in Italy that was both historical and theoretical. We are referring here to the birth, development and decline of a research project that had assumed Sraffa’s book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities as its basic reference. At the beginning of this debate, the characteristics of Sraffa’s theory as an open scheme enabled it to produce a theoretical core having multiple derivations (both Keynesian and Marxian). In this system of scientific synergies a special role was played by the discussion concerning wages as independent variable. The result was a meta-theoretical concept of wage as a price governed prevalently by social forces and power relations. We have called this complex research programme the conflict paradigm. Successively the paper considers the reasons which, since the mid-seventies, started to corrode this compound doctrinaire alliance, first of all the intellectual disorientation caused by both the acute expressions of crisis in the second half of nineteen-seventies, and the criticism against the Sraffa’s theory as an open scheme, as a factor that deprived the study of economics of the solid anchor of equilibrium analysis.

The Marriage of Psychoanalytic Methodology with the Biosemiotic Agenda

An overview of core phenomena and processes leading to Freud’s establishing his psycho-analytic method and early metatheoretical concepts is followed by the author’s revision of his topographical model into a seamless biosemiotic theory of mind and human communication. A careful methodological analysis of the semantic/referential scope; speech/listening processes, and semiotic features, of a dialogue designed to make the unconscious conscious, reveals an epistemological bridge between psychoanalytic methodology and the biosemiotic agenda within a unifying inter-penetrative paradigm.

Cognition and emotion from the ret viewpoint

This article discusses the considerable overlap between my own (R. S. Lazarus) and Albert Ellis' cognitive view of emotions. In discussing Ellis' approach, the hallmarks of a cognitive theory of emotion are identified. My own theory concerning the role of cognitive appraisal and coping in emotions is discussed as well as the crucial metatheoretical concepts of transaction and process. It is stretching things to say that Albert Ellis has presented a fully elaborated theory of emotion. Rather, he has achieved the beginnings of a good theory especially as applied to the pathology of emotional life and how to correct it. Most lacking is how the emotion process works from encounter to encounter, moment to moment. Irrational beliefs as structural, static variables do not adequately account for emotional flux nor adequately explain the content and intensities of the full range of positive and negative emotions.

Rhetorical barriers to understanding housing provision: What the ‘provision thesis’ is and is not

Abstract This paper reviews some recent critiques of the concept of ‘structures of housing provision’ (SHP) and attempts to clarify the nature and status of this concept. It argues that SHP is not a ‘theory of housing’, nor does it imply a production‐centred approach to housing analysis. Rather, SHP is a metatheoretical concept or analytical framework which, together with other theories, may be of use in the examination of particular aspects of housing development.

Two Cheers for Psychologic--and Three Reservations

My first cheer is for what Smedslund has done for the discipline of psychology by his lonely attempt to explicate and formalize the logical structure of ordinary language dealing with psychological topics. The proposition that a coherent structure of logically connected terms must underlie successful communication and the effective coordination of everyday social interaction seems irrefutable, and some version of this proposition has been held by numerous modem thinkers (to mention only a few-Harre & Secord, 1973; Ossorio, 1966, 1969/1978, 1971/1978; Ryle, 1949; Wittgenstein, 1953). The task that Smedslund, however, has taken on is the presentation of substantial body of this logic in an authoritative manner. Among the critics of conventional psychology, Smedslund and Ossorio stand out in their commitment to developing systematic, formal alternatives to the pseudoempiricism so common in our science. In this appreciation and critique of psychologic (PL), I draw on conceptual resources first developed explicitly in descriptive psychology by Ossorio (1985; see Shideler, 1988, for a readable brief introduction to descriptive psychology and its major concepts), because they provide clear alternatives to some of the crucial decisions that Smedslund has made, and I believe that it is extremely important to the task of reformulating the social practices of academic psychology to examine critically the alternatives proposed. A second reason for cheering PL is that Smedslund's identification of pseudoempiricality as a metatheoretical concept provides an explanation for the poverty of much psychological theorizing. In Persons (1966), Ossorio did a similar job for the major personality and learning theories of that period, and in Davis (1968) and Ossorio and Davis (1968), I raised similar questions about research on interpersonal attraction and dissonance theory. But granting two of Smedslund's major points-that a coherent structure of logically related terms can be shown to exist and that much modem psychological research is limited in both its depth and relevance by its pseudoempiricality-one may still wish to pursue the task of articulating the logical structure of psychological discourse in a much different way from the approach Smedslund has taken with PL. I offer three reasons for being wary of PL and refer interested readers to sources where they can follow up these briefly stated views. I am wary of PL chiefly because of the following three concerns: (a) Smedslund's choice of conceptual/representational devices for exhibiting the logical structures of everyday behavior, (b) the absence within PL of a systematic criterion for the adequacy of his formulation, and (c) the lack of a substantial body of empirical work that extends the frontiers of psychological knowledge. I deal with each of these concerns in turn.

ORGANIZATIONAL SYMBOLISM AND IDEOLOGY*

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to discuss organizational symbolism research from a critique of ideology perspective. Various aspects of ideology as a metatheoretical concept are discussed. Criteria governing when it might be appropriate to conduct a critical analysis of ideological elements in research texts are also suggested. These include restricted social autonomy of researchers, socio‐political relevance and ideological usefulness of research products, social fashionability of research areas, pseudo‐objective style, absence of indicated self‐reflection and lack of manifested awareness of the social context of research in research publications.The organizational symbolism research field is discussed in relation to ideology and some influential texts are interpreted in the light of ideology‐critique. the criteria for a sensitive reading of research texts in terms of problematical ideological elements are applied and their relevance illustrated. the article also discusses the field of organizational symbolism in terms of Habermas' concepts of cognitive interests, emancipation and undistorted communication.

Theory-Based Stress Measurement

Although arguments about how to measure psychological stress are typically based on implicit epistemological and theoretical assumptions, stress measurement has almost never been truly theory driven. The objective of this article is to address several measurement and research issues that derive from my particular metatheoretical concepts of systems thinking, transaction, and process and from my substantive theoretical concepts, which center on appraisal and coping. These issues are illustrated with research on the Hassles Scale. I address four controversial issues with reasoned arguments, and, as might be anticipated, I take the view (a) that stress is mainly a subjective rather than objective phenomenon, (b) that it is best measured as seemingly minor annoyances rather than major cataclysms, (c) that confounding-although a problem-does not accountfor the relationship between stress and adaptational outcomes, and (d) that any stress measure should assess the contents or sources of stress rather than merely its degree. In addition, I argue for increased emphasis on psychological content in stress scales andfor greater attention to the individual's larger adaptational context, to a systems theory perspective, and to the time periods during which stress is sampled. Finally, I argue that we should abandon the measurement of stress, which tends to be too unidimensional, in favor of measuring the degree and quality of the emotions of daily living. Information derived from such measures could greatly expand our understanding of how individuals handle both positive and negative experiences.

Why do some molecules have symmetry different from that expected?

Examination of avoidance, in which a given molecular system assumes an equilibrium structure of lower symmetry than expected on the basis of chemical intuition and/or meta-theoretical concepts.

New foundations for metascience

The objective of the present paper is to introduce a new approach to the study of the logical structure of scientific theories. We shall consider, in broad outline, a basic framework for handling theories and for analyzing a number of key metatheoretical concepts. The framework itself may be formally captured within a suitable system of set theory. However, its major innovative and heuristic thrust derives from some notions em ployed in modern abstract logic; in particular, it encourages the application of model-theoretic concepts and results to questions con cerning the structure and dynamics of empirical theories. The viewpoint adopted here shares some features in common with previous attempts at framing metascientific concepts, especially with the 'logistic' or model-theoretic, and with the so-called structuralist ap proaches. Like the former, it stresses the use of formal semantics in metascience; with the latter, it also appeals to some of the more abstract and structural characteristics of theories. However, it differs from these and other traditional approaches, notably in the role in which logic is portrayed. The nature and function of logic in scientific theorizing is here construed in an unusually liberal fashion: it is neither seen as a constraint on the syntactical form of theories, nor viewed as imposing limitations on the kinds of inferences permitted in science. This flexible and versatile conception of logic will be seen to amount to a somewhat radical departure from traditional usage. It also constitutes what the authors believe to be the clearest grounds for upholding the present framework. It should be mentioned at the outset that no new formal results are brought in this paper;1 nor do we pretend to offer a complete and polished semantical machinery whose fine details are fully developed at each point. Instead, we shall attempt to present something of the flavour of this framework with a minimum of technical fuss.2 We shall also try to provide some arguments in its support, and to indicate how it may lead to some fresh insights on a range of familiar, and sometimes controversial,