Individualism is typically separated from its counterpart-collectivism. It is regarded as one of the most important characteristics of American people, comparing to collectivism of Eastern Asian people. However, such a simple dichotomy as individualism vs. collectivism is unproductive for psychology. An ethnographic study was performed at some schools in the United States from Japanese point of view. The result suggested that the dichotomy was too simple to understand American practices to socialize individualistic orientations. The study also fails to help in understanding cultural peculiarities of both the United States and Japan. The ''American individualism'' seemed to be salient in terms of guiding children to be selectively independent from peers, but not from parents-in contrast to the Japanese ways. Collectivistic aspects were also found in specific forms of social organization within schools in the United States. The ''American collectivism'' seemed to be salient in terms of promoting upward social mobility of the individualistic actor, and not viewed as a downward social trajectory or a repressive act against the individual.
This paper will start from focusing on the limitations of quantitative approach in psychology from three viewpoints. First--data collection, especially experiments and questionnaires as two major methods of quantitative approach. The second limitation is data aggregation, followed by the third--statistical significance testing. After that, recent spread of qualitative approach as another option for one of psychological methods will be introduced and a controversy surrounding epistemology of qualitative approach will be also introduced. Finally, it will be discussed that accumulation of faithful descriptions on reality, especially from qualitative approach, would be needed for producing creative research.
There are two ways for overcoming limitations of methods used in psychology, as Toomela (Integr. Physiol. Behav. Sci. doi:10.1007/s12124-007-9004-0, 2007) points out. These are inventing new methods of research, and looking back into the history of methodological thought for new ideas. Though he limited the former as if it is a quantitative area and he declared to take the latter path, his paper actually advocates the need to create new methodology for understanding the human psyche through historical approach. We discuss problems of sampling and generalization in that context, and suggest a new way to creative synthesis through elaboration of qualitative methodologies. To us this direction constitutes an updated version of the German-Austrian methodology exactly as Toomela suggests.
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