Psychology: Where history, culture, and biology meet

Abstract

This article argues that the same epistemological assumptions cannot be confidently applied in the transition from the biological to the social arenas of psychology, as a consequence of the sociocultural instability resulting from human linguistic and technological flair. To illustrate this contention, reference is made to historicist theses within critical and sociocultural psychology, the work of Ian Hacking and Norbert Elias, the centrality of language and technology to sociocultural instability, and the illustrative issues raised by cultural neuroscience and replication studies.

The methods and principles of the natural sciences are not a diet we need to follow: A close look at the terms of the question

“… 8. Along similar lines, Tim Newton (2023) recently argued in this journal that the hybrid nature of people as both biological and social beings calls for pluralism. …”

Approaching psychology’s current crises by exploring the vagueness of psychological concepts: Recommendations for advancing the discipline.

“…From the perspective of the crisis diagnoses mentioned above, one might argue that the vagueness of psychological concepts results from poor and questionable research practices (replication crisis), stems from neglecting cross-cultural and cross-cultural variance (universality crisis), or is the consequence of superficial theorizing (theory crisis). Although we do not want to dispute the importance of improving methods and research practices, broadening the scope and generalizability of psychological findings, and creating better theories, our key claim is more radical (for a related line of reasoning, see Newton, 2023; see also Gergen, 1973): As we will argue in the following, the vagueness of psychological concepts—in the sense that their meanings (e.g., “What does ‘stress’ mean?”) and their rules for application (e.g., “Is X an instance of someone being stressed?”) are indeterminate—cannot be circumvented. The reasons for this are the existence of looping effects, the inevitability of using ordinary language in psychological research, and the context-dependence of the meaning of psychological concepts.…”