Theoretical Work In Psychology Research Articles

The role of emotional sensitivity to probability in the decision to choose genetic testing.

While the availability of genetic testing is rapidly increasing, many opt out of testing. The decision to test or not is emotionally charged, and both clinical research and theoretical work in psychology show that in emotional decisions, people often struggle to interpret and utilize risk information. Clinical research on genetic testing uptake also shows that feeling overwhelmed by numeric information may be a deterrent to testing. However, recent psychological research indicates that some portion of the population has greater emotional sensitivity to probability, (i.e., the extent to which emotional reactions to risk depend on probabilities) than others. We hypothesize that participants high in emotional sensitivity to probability will be more interested in genetic testing as an opportunity to seek greater precision in risk estimates and that this relationship is moderated by the testing context itself. In an online survey of a nationally representative sample (not recruited as patients), participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario describing a suspected diagnosis with an option for genetic testing. The scenario experimentally varied the pre-test probability estimate of the diagnosis (low or high) and whether the test results would result in certainty (ruling in or ruling out the diagnosis), or reduced uncertainty (providing a more precise individual risk estimate). Results indicated that emotional sensitivity to probability was a strong predictor of intention to test, particularly when the test allowed participants to rule out a diagnosis, reducing an already low probability to zero. These results highlight the way patients' individual characteristics interact with the testing context to guide decision-making and provide important insight into the way patients integrate risk probability information into intensely emotional decisions.

Theoretical dialogue and interdisciplinary relevance: Thirty years of Theory & Psychology

The 30th year of publication of Theory & Psychology has coincided with local and global disruption and upheaval. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone, and in so doing has reemphasized (and in some instances reinforced and exacerbated) systemic inequities. The year has also been characterized by a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and antiracism protests, as well as counter protests from the far right. There has been a dramatic upsurge in public disagreement about knowledge claims in what some have been calling a post-truth world. Given this, it is worth reexamining the role of theoretical psychology in the discipline and beyond. The occasion of the 30-year anniversary of Theory & Psychology is used to reaffirm the vibrancy and relevance of theoretical work in psychology. The question is raised to what degree we have an obligation to make our theoretical work intelligible beyond the specific scholarly communities engaged in work similar to our own. Ten articles featured in this anniversary issue are introduced.

Hayek the Apriorist?

The paper aims to establish that Terence Hutchison’s argument in The Politics and Philosophy of Economics (1981) to the effect that the young F.A. Hayek maintained a methodological position markedly similar to that of Ludwig von Mises fails to establish the relevant conclusion. The first problem with Hutchison’s argument is that it is not clear exactly what conclusion he meant to establish with regard to the methodological views of the two paragons of 20th century Austrian economics. Mises (in)famously maintained a rather extreme methodological apriorism. However, Hutchison’s argument does not support the claim that Hayek was ever an apriorist of the Misesian variety. The concept of a priori knowledge that emerges from Hayek’s epistemology – specifically the epistemology implied by Hayek’s work in theoretical psychology – is the direct opposite of Mises’ treatment of a priori knowledge. Simply stated, Hayek conceived of a priori knowledge as fallible and relative, while Mises considered a priori knowledge to be infallible and absolute. Thus, it cannot be maintained – if, indeed, Hutchison meant to establish – that Hayek was a Misesian apriorist during the years in question. What’s more, the paper shows that Hutchison’s argument does not support a weaker interpretation of the relevant conclusion. There are alternative interpretations of the evidence adduced by Hutchison that are both more charitable and more in line with Hayek’s epistemology that undermine Hutchison’s conclusion.

Scientific Biography, Cognitive Deficits, and Laboratory Practice: James McKeen Cattell and Early American Experimental Psychology, 1880–1904

Despite widespread interest in individual life histories, few biographies of scientists make use of insights derived from psychology, another discipline that studies people, their thoughts, and their actions. This essay argues that recent theoretical work in psychology and tools developed for clinical psychological practice can help biographical historians of science create and present fuller portraits of their subjects' characters and temperaments and more nuanced analyses of how these traits helped shape their subjects' scientific work. To illustrate this thesis, the essay examines the early career of James McKeen Cattell--an influential late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century experimental psychologist--through a lens offered by psychology and argues that Cattell's actual laboratory practices derived from an "accommodation" to a long-standing "cognitive deficit." These practices in turn enabled Cattell to achieve more precise experimental results than could any of his contemporaries; and their students readily adopted them, along with their behavioral implications. The essay concludes that, in some ways, American psychology's early twentieth-century move toward a behavioral understanding of psychological phenomena can be traced to Cattell's personal cognitive deficit. It closes by reviewing several "remaining general questions" that this thesis suggests.

Theory in Action

Although the value placed on theoretical work in psychology has diminished over recent years, new and significant challenges to the status of theory have emerged within the intellectual community more generally. The demise of the mapping metaphor, the reduction of reason to rhetoric, and the recognition of the impossibility of value-neutral theorizing all raise questions concerning the status and function of theory. Critical theory in psychology has provided one response to these issues by employing theory as an emancipatory device. However, given the limits to pure critique, many search for means of employing theory in the service of pro-active practices of social change. Given the various problems of theory in the traditional mold, what is the function and status of theory in these emerging practices? In the present issue, we bring together five explorations of the utility of theory in processes of social action. Pivotal in these offerings is the reconceptualization of theory as a form of discursive action. When viewed in this light, new and important issues emerge in our understanding of theoretical work and its place in both intellectual and social life.

From The Sensory Order to the Liberal Order: Hayek's Non-rationalist Liberalism ⁄

Hayek's arguments for a constitutionally constrainted government are consistent with, and to some extent rest upon, his work in theoretical psychology. By exploring his view of the mind in The Sensory Order, we can see the psychological and epistemological underpinnings of Hayek's belief in the mind's limits and the indispensibility of spontaneously emergent social institutions. The Austrian view of microeconomic coordination is a logical outgrowth of Hayek's theory of mind. Constraints on government are necessary not because self-interest leads rational government actors into temptation, but because even altruistically-motivated actors are epistemically unable to intervene effectively in spontaneously emergent institutions.

Reference Points for Critical Theoretical Work in Psychology

Jost and Hardin's (1996) defence of Wittgenstein fails to address the ways in which that writer's texts function in different discursive contexts to warrant essentialist and relativist positions. The strategy of assembling bits of text from Wittgenstein and Marx to illustrate similarities of perspective is unconvincing, for it neglects the mobilization of theoretical arguments in the context of institutionally situated language-games or forms of life. There are deep problems with Wittgenstein's work as the underpinning for a critical position in psychology, as I argued in my paper (Parker, 1996), but we can still, paradoxically, understand why that may be so by taking seriously some of the insights in Wittgenstein's own writing.

The Discursive Production of Selves

The concept of `Self' has been the focus of much recent work in theoretical psychology. Difficulties have been at least partly due to the polysemous character of the concept itself. In this paper an attempt is made to clear the ground for more sharply focused psychological studies of personhood by distinguishing Self-1, roughly the philosophers' concept of personal identity, from Self-2, the Self that Goffman referred to in his studies of Self-presentation. The argument turns on the assumption that both concepts of Self are indispensable both for understanding person-hood and for living as persons. Problems and misunderstandings stem from the use of inappropriate grammatical models for understanding person talk. Setting up more adequate models allows one to propose a social constructionist account of both presented Selves and of the sense of subjective singularity.

Measuring Pilot Workload in a Moving-Base Simulator: I. Asynchronous Secondary Choice-Reaction Task

The de facto method for measuring airplane pilot workload is based upon subjective ratings. While researchers agree that such subjective data should be bolstered by using objective behavioral measures, results to date have been mixed. No clear objective technique has surfaced as the metric of choice. We believe this difficulty is in part due to neglect of theoretical work in psychology that predicts some of the difficulties that are inherent in a futile search for the one and only best secondary task to measure workload. An initial study that used both subjective ratings and an asynchronous choice-reaction secondary task was conducted to determine if such a secondary task could indeed meet the methodological constraints imposed by current theories of attention. Two variants of a flight scenario were combined with two levels of the secondary task. Appropriate single-task control conditions were also included. Results give grounds for cautious optimism but indicate that future research should use synchronous secondary tasks where possible.

ON PHYSICAL MODEL EXPLANATIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY

MUCH current theoretical work in psychology takes the form of looking for appropriate physical models with which to describe, by analogy, the findings of experiment and observation. The ' problem of consciousness' is shelved, or regarded as a logically different sort of question from those the experimentalist can hope to answer with his techniques. The experimentalist asks instead what sort of mechanism could perform the tasks undertaken by the central nervous system. He considers the ordered activity of the organism in performing a skill, and the changes in performances during the learning of skills, and he considers perception and learning and nervous organisation in terms of practical or theoretically possible machines. Perhaps the best-known examples of this way of thinking in psychology are the computer and the servo-mechanism analogies. The former was suggested by the feats of the large electronic calculating machines capable of producing numerical solutions to problems requiring perhaps years of work by a mathematician unaided by machines. The latter analogy was suggested during the war, when for example, automatic gun-aiming devices were developed which caused guns to follow moving targets in a manner which seemed similar to eye-hand co-ordination. The servo-mechanism analogy has proved useful both in interpreting the physiological mechanisms responsible for controlled movement, and for the design of machines such as aeroplanes which must be accurately controlled by men. The man is himself regarded as part of the total servo-loop, his parameters are determined (for example the phase angle of the error for various input frequencies), and these are accepted as part of the data to be considered when designing the control systems of aircraft.