Problematic Research Practices And Inertia In Scientific Psychology

This volume explores the abiding intellectual inertia in scientific psychology in relation to the discipline’s engagement with problematic beliefs and assumptions underlying mainstream research practices, despite repeated critical analyses which reveal the weaknesses, and in some cases complete inappropriateness, of these methods. Such paradigmatic inertia is especially troublesome for a scholarly discipline claiming status as a science. The book offers penetrating analyses of many (albeit not all) of the most important areas where mainstream practices require either compelling justifications for their continuation or adjustments – possibly including abandonment – toward more apposite alternatives. Specific areas of concern addressed in this book include the systemic misinterpretation of statistical knowledge; the prevalence of a conception of measurement at odds with yet purporting to mimic the natural sciences; the continuing widespread reliance on null hypothesis testing; and the continuing resistance within psychology to the explicit incorporation of qualitative methods into its methodological toolbox. Broader level chapters examine mainstream psychology’s systemic disregard for critical analysis of its tenets, and the epistemic and ethical problems this has created. This is a vital and engaging resource for researchers across psychology, and those in the wider behavioural and social sciences who have an interest in, or who use, psychological research methods.

This work brings together different perspectives on psychological methods and particularly methods involving experimentation. To encourage a reflective use of research methods, the authors illuminate the historical, philosophical, and scientific dimensions of methodology, providing both defenses and criticisms of experimental psychology. The primary audience of the work are students and researchers in psychological and behavioral sciences, who have an interest in methodology

Routledge International Handbook of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology is a compilation of works by leading scholars in theoretical and philosophical psychology that offers critical analyses of, and alternatives to, current theories and philosophies typically taken for granted in mainstream psychology. Within their chapters, the expert authors briefly describe accepted theories and philosophies before explaining their problems and exploring fresh, new ideas for practice and research. These alternative ideas offer thought-provoking ways of reinterpreting many aspects of human existence often studied by psychologists. Organized into five sections, the volume covers the discipline of psychology in general, various subdisciplines (e.g., positive psychology and human development), concepts of self and identity as well as research and practice. Together the chapters present a set of alternative ideas that have the potential to take the field of psychology in fruitful directions not anticipated in more traditional theory and research. This handbook will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of the theory, assumptions, and history of psychology.

This insightful book offers contemporary psychologists and other social theorists an understanding of the comprehensive system of thought developed by the German scholar William Stern (1871–1938) known as critical personalism. Expanding the author’s ongoing efforts in this area, the book considers, firstly, how critical personalism could ground a needed revival of psychological science, a need created by the field's gradual transformation, through its widespread adoption of aggregate statistical methods of investigation, into a discipline better characterized as 'psycho-demography.' Consistent with Stern's own view of the potential of critical personalism vis-a-vis socio-ethical concerns, the book then explores how the framework could facilitate a transcendence of thinking about racial and other social relationships beyond currently prevailing narratives about personkinds into narratives that are actually about persons. This part of the book includes a chapter discussing Stern's own historical efforts in this direction, serving to highlight the non-individualistic nature of critically personalistic thinking. Throughout, Lamiell constructs a clear case for the merits and applicability of critical personalism in modern psychology and social thought. Primer in Critical Personalism will interest established psychological scientists and advanced students in the field, as well as those who are concerned about our contemporary socio-cultural ethos and the prospects for its improvement, including philosophers, sociologists, educators, journalists, clerics, and thoughtful laypersons alike.

Offers an entirely new way of thinking about how psychology works and how it constructs knowledge, using a process-based approach.

The purpose of A Humane Vision of Clinical Psychology, Volume II, is to encourage clinical and personal reflection on the part of reading clinicians, so as to foster more thought about the meaning and complexities of the therapeutic encounter. It does so by offering three clinical examples and a searching discussion of what each might teach us about the case at hand, ourselves, and the world. The book begins with an honest exploration of the limitations accompanying any and every attempt to write about the action of psychotherapy, which the first volume characterised as ineffable. More particularly, it is suggested that the deepest therapeutic phenomenon, experiential "proximity," is itself neither fully observable to the participants nor capturable by a verbal account. These concessions, which effectively confine the therapeutic "mechanism" to the air of every encounter, threaten to make descriptions of psychotherapy useless. However, while we can never rightly describe the fundamental cause of change, we can describe its observable corollaries. It is then suggested that certain therapeutic postures—those of kindness, openness, and sameness—facilitate the expansion of the other’s cognitive apparatus and thereby the "knowns" that inhabit their minds (the main goal of therapy, per Volume I). A Humane Vision of Clinical Psychology, Volume II, is valuable for therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other practitioners as well as graduate and undergraduate students in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, mental health, social work, and philosophy.

This authoritative volume presents a detailed analysis of the replication crisis and the use of questionable research practices (QRPs) in psychology, as well as recommended practices for combatting these problems. Ultimately, the book aims to provide a comprehensive, current, and accessible account of the adverse effects of QRPs. The replication crisis in psychology and allied fields has exposed critical flaws in the standard views of research methods, which allow for extensive flexibility in data analysis by investigators and permit the widespread use of QRPs. Chapters examine the intentional use of QRPs such as data fabrication and falsification, along with subtler, unintentional practices such as p-hacking and HARKING (hypothesizing after results are known). Drawing on the growing awareness of these problems, contributors also highlight potential strategies to detect QRPs and minimize their negative impact through open data practices, preregistration of hypotheses and analyses, and adversarial collaborations, in which investigators holding opposing positions on a scientific issue agree to work together on a study in an effort to counteract their respective biases. Among the topics covered: History of controversies in statistics and replication Embracing intellectual humility while designing research Confirmatory vs. exploratory analyses Publication bias and negative results Promoting honest and transparent report writing Avoiding Questionable Research Practices in Applied Psychology provides a deeper understanding of how QRPs impede the reliability and trustworthiness of findings in psychology and the social sciences. It will be a practical, useful resource for students and instructors in graduate and advanced undergraduate level research methods classes, along with psychological researchers interested in improving their own research.

The primary purpose of psychotherapy is to improve a patient’s subjective experience. A Humane Vision of Clinical Psychology, Volume I shows readers what this might really mean, how it can be achieved, and where prevailing views go wrong in achieving it. It lays out an alternative idea of human suffering and human healing, one that deemphasizes constructs and prioritizes experience itself. Early chapters argue that helping people to "know new things" is the ultimate target of psychotherapeutic change, but that our field has not sufficiently reflected on the complications of this task. A theory is then offered, which suggests that the unthinkable aspects of human experience are responsible for the very ways in which we human beings think. It invites and outlines a serious reformulation of psychotherapy in which human cognition is not the seat but the beneficiary of human change. This book will be valuable for therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other practitioners as well as graduate and undergraduate students in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, mental health, social work, and philosophy. It will be of great interest for clinicians who find themselves disenchanted with the field’s current ethos, which is stilted by scientistic approaches to soothing the suffering of the other.