Theory Construction In Psychology Research Articles

Towards a general modeling framework of resource competition in cognitive development.

The current paper presents an integrated formal model of typical and atypical development based on the mechanisms of mutualism and resource competition. The mutualistic network model is extended with the dynamics of competition for limited resources, such as time and environmental factors. The proposed model generates patterns that resemble established phenomena in cognitive development: the positive manifold, developmental phases, developmental delays and lack of early indicators in atypical development, developmental regression, and "quasi-autism" caused by extreme environmental deprivation. The presented modeling framework fits a general movement towards formal theory construction in psychology. The model is easy to replicate and develop further, and we offer several avenues for future work.

The monamine hypothesis, placebos, and problems of theory construction in psychology and psychiatry

Can there be scientific theories in psychology, medicine or psychiatry? I approach this question through an in-depth analysis of a typical experiment for clinical depression involving the monoamine hypothesis, drug action, and placebos. I begin my discussion with a reconstruction of Adolf Grünbaum’s conceptual analysis of what a placebo is. I then use his notion of “intentional placebo” to discuss a typical experiment using the monoamine hypothesis, two drugs, and a placebo. I focus on the theoretical aspects of the experiment, especially on the notion of causal explanation. I then raise five conceptual and methodological problems for theory construction. These problems focus on questions of the causal efficacy of placebos and drugs; ad hoc versus ceteris paribus explanations in biomedicine and psychology; and the falsifiability of the monoamine hypothesis. I conclude by pointing out the need for further, rigorous philosophical analysis concerning the possibility of theory construction in psychology, medicine or psychiatry.

Theory construction in psychology: The interpretation and integration of psychological data

IThe interpretation of data requires a model of the data gathering process. The integration of data requires a classification system that extends across different data sets. This article discusses some of the difficulties involved in the interpretation and integration of psychological data, and presents a survey of some recent developments in theory construction and evaluation from related areas of methodology of science, information processing and computer theories. The basic behavioral data of psychology consist of descriptions of when who emitted what under which conditions. There are so many whens, whos, whats, and whichs that it is impossible to store them all in all their detail (though some psychologists are trying to do just that). The lack of storage facilities forces everyone to record only those special aspects that he considers important at the moment. Different observers often use different classification categories, and the same observer often changes his system from one experiment to the next. The absence of any over-all theory or methodology serves to perpetuate and even to justify this diversity. For that matter, it is after all exactly the job of an over-all theory to reduce a bewildering variety of data to manageable proportions: to provide a 'key' or code which unlocks significant patterns of data from the noisy confusion. And especially important are those theories which integrate data across different data sets, since that results in powerful generalizations which are more independent from particular aspects of the way observations and measurements are set up. The historical situation by the mid-sixties was such that relatively little progress had been made by psychologists to resolve these problems (Murphy, 1963; Sells, 1963; Toda and Shuford, 1964). The anti-theory attitude that had prevailed in psychology (Boring, 1963; Chapanis, 1963;Marx, 1963)had

Individual differences as a crucible in theory construction.

My proposal is that we should formulate our nomothetic theories in a way that will allow an immediate individual-differences test. I am proposing this because, among other benefits, I believe this approach will make individual differences a crucible in theory construction. The argument I advance is applicable to theory construction in all areas of experimental psychology, but my illustrations come largely from the areas of learning and memory. I feel impelled initially to reconstruct as best I can the reasons that led me to compose an article dealing with theory construction. It has resulted from a professional uneasiness that has grown over the past few years. These pinpricks of uneasiness seemed to say that our profession needed to open a discussion of theory construction in psychology, a discussion led by psychologists, for psychologists. When the uneasy feelings were articulated in this manner, I was able to identify three developments that had been responsible for the pinpricks. And then a fourth development took place which led me to presume I might have something to say that could just possibly initiate the discussion. The first source of uneasiness was quite an unlikely one, namely, the undergraduate student. On occasion, a perceptive one will ask me, do you get a theory? How does one answer this question? I found myself answering with a few pieces of trivia of the kind that any experienced teacher has ready for such mpments. My lack of