scholarly journals Invisible Hands and Fine Calipers: A Call to Use Formal Theory as a Toolkit for Theory Construction

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162097469
Author(s):  
Donald J. Robinaugh ◽  
Jonas M. B. Haslbeck ◽  
Oisín Ryan ◽  
Eiko I. Fried ◽  
Lourens J. Waldorp
Keyword(s):  
Theory Development ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Theory Testing ◽  
Theory Construction ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Collaborative Construction ◽  
The Status ◽  
Formal Theories

In recent years, a growing chorus of researchers has argued that psychological theory is in a state of crisis: Theories are rarely developed in a way that indicates an accumulation of knowledge. Paul Meehl raised this very concern more than 40 years ago. Yet in the ensuing decades, little has improved. We aim to chart a better path forward for psychological theory by revisiting Meehl’s criticisms, his proposed solution, and the reasons his solution failed to meaningfully change the status of psychological theory. We argue that Meehl identified serious shortcomings in our evaluation of psychological theories and that his proposed solution would substantially strengthen theory testing. However, we also argue that Meehl failed to provide researchers with the tools necessary to construct the kinds of rigorous theories his approach required. To advance psychological theory, we must equip researchers with tools that allow them to better generate, evaluate, and develop their theories. We argue that formal theories provide this much-needed set of tools, equipping researchers with tools for thinking, evaluating explanation, enhancing measurement, informing theory development, and promoting the collaborative construction of psychological theories.

scholarly journals Invisible Hands and Fine Calipers: A Call to Use Formal Theory as a Toolkit for Theory Construction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Robinaugh ◽  
Jonas M B Haslbeck ◽  
Oisín Ryan ◽  
Eiko I Fried ◽  
Lourens Waldorp
Keyword(s):  
Theory Development ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Theory Construction ◽  
Meaningful Change ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Collaborative Construction ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Control

In recent years, a growing chorus of researchers have argued that psychological theory is in a state of crisis: theories are rarely developed in a way that indicates an accumulation of knowledge and they are often absent from our research entirely. More than 40 years ago, Paul Meehl raised these very concerns. Yet, in the ensuing decades, little has improved. We aim to chart a better path forward for psychological theory by revisiting Meehl's criticisms, his proposed solution, and the reasons his solution failed to meaningful change the status of psychological theory. We argue that Meehl identified serious shortcomings in our evaluation of psychological theories and that his proposed solution would substantially strengthen theory testing. However, we also argue that he failed to provide researchers a set of tools for theory construction. To advance psychological theory, we must equip researchers with tools to better generate, evaluate, and develop their theories. We argue that formal theories provide this much needed set of tools, equipping researchers with tools for thinking, evaluating explanation, informing theory development, strengthening measurement, and moving toward collaborative construction of psychological theories that allow us to explain, predict, and control psychological phenomena.

scholarly journals Anatomy of a Psychological Theory: Integrating Construct-Validation and Computational-Modeling Methods to Advance Theorizing

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162096679
Author(s):  
Ivan Grahek ◽  
Mark Schaller ◽  
Jennifer L. Tackett
Keyword(s):  
Computational Modeling ◽  
Construct Validation ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Modeling Methods ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
Convergence And Divergence

Discussions about the replicability of psychological studies have primarily focused on improving research methods and practices, with less attention paid to the role of well-specified theories in facilitating the production of reliable empirical results. The field is currently in need of clearly articulated steps to theory specification and development, particularly regarding frameworks that may generalize across different fields of psychology. Here we focus on two approaches to theory specification and development that are typically associated with distinct research traditions: computational modeling and construct validation. We outline the points of convergence and divergence between them to illuminate the anatomy of a scientific theory in psychology—what a well-specified theory should contain and how it should be interrogated and revised through iterative theory-development processes. We propose how these two approaches can be used in complementary ways to increase the quality of explanations and the precision of predictions offered by psychological theories.

scholarly journals Anatomy of a Psychological Theory: Integrating Construct Validation and Computational Modeling Methods to Advance Theorizing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Grahek ◽  
Mark Schaller ◽  
Jennifer L Tackett
Keyword(s):  
Computational Modeling ◽  
Construct Validation ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Modeling Methods ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
Convergence And Divergence

Discussions about replicability of psychological studies have primarily focused on improving research methods and practices, with less attention paid to the role of well-specified theories in facilitating the production of reliable empirical results. The field is currently in need of clearly articulated steps to theory specification and development, particularly regarding frameworks that may generalize across different fields of psychology. Here we focus on two approaches to theory specification and development which are typically associated with distinct research traditions: computational modeling and construct validation. We outline the points of convergence and divergence between them to illuminate the anatomy of a scientific theory in psychology - what a well specified theory should contain and how it should be interrogated and revised through iterative theory development processes. We propose how these two approaches can be used in complementary ways to increase the quality of explanations and the precision of predictions offered by psychological theories.

Linguistic Epiphenomenalism ‐ Davidson and Chomsky on the Status of Public Languages

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Nevo
Keyword(s):  
Formal Theory ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Social Fact ◽  
The Status ◽  
Systematic Structure ◽  
Formal Theories

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to highlight an individualist streak in both Davidson’s conception of language and Chomsky’s. In the first part of the paper, I argue that in Davidson’s case this individualist streak is a consequence of an excessively strong conception of what the compositional nature of linguistic meaning requires, and I offer a weaker conception of that requirement that can do justice to both the publicity and the compositionality of language. In the second part of the paper, I offer a comparison between Davidson’s position on the unreality of public languages, and Chomsky’s position regarding the epiphenomenal status of “externalized” languages. In Chomsky’s case, as in Davidson’s, languages are individuated in terms of the formal theories that serve to account for their systematic structure, and this assumption rests upon a similarly strong and similarly questionable understanding of what it is to employ finite means in pursuit of an infinite task. The alternative, at which I can only hint, is a view of language as a social and historical reality, i.e., a realm of social fact that cannot be exhausted by any formal theory and cannot be reduced to properties of individual speakers.

scholarly journals So Useful as a Good Theory? The Practicality Crisis in (Social) Psychological Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162096965
Author(s):  
Elliot T. Berkman ◽  
Sylas M. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
National Level ◽  
Laboratory Data ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Health Domains ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Social Psychological Theory

Practicality was a valued attribute of academic psychological theory during its initial decades, but usefulness has since faded in importance to the field. Theories are now evaluated mainly on their ability to account for decontextualized laboratory data and not their ability to help solve societal problems. With laudable exceptions in the clinical, intergroup, and health domains, most psychological theories have little relevance to people’s everyday lives, poor accessibility to policymakers, or even applicability to the work of other academics who are better positioned to translate the theories to the practical realm. We refer to the lack of relevance, accessibility, and applicability of psychological theory to the rest of society as the practicality crisis. The practicality crisis harms the field in its ability to attract the next generation of scholars and maintain viability at the national level. We describe practical theory and illustrate its use in the field of self-regulation. Psychological theory is historically and scientifically well positioned to become useful should scholars in the field decide to value practicality. We offer a set of incentives to encourage the return of social psychology to the Lewinian vision of a useful science that speaks to pressing social issues.

History and Systems of Critical Psychology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Teo
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Critical Psychology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Strong Basis ◽  
Psychological Practice ◽  
The Status ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Many Sources ◽  
The Relationship

Critical psychology comprises a broad range of international approaches centered around theories and practices of critique, power, resistance, and alternatives of practice. Although critical psychology had an axial age in and around the 1970s, many sources can be found decades and even centuries earlier. Critical psychology is not only about the critique of psychology, which is a broader historical and theoretical field, but about doing justice in and through theory, justice with and to groups of people, and justice to the reality of society, history, and culture as they powerfully constitute subjectivity, as well as the discipline and profession of psychology. Doing justice in and through psychological theory has a strong basis in Western critical approaches, representing a privileged position of reflection in Euro-American research institutions. Critical psychologists argue that traditional psychology is missing its subject matter and hence is not doing justice in methodology, and its practices of control and adjustment are not doing justice to the emancipatory possibilities of human agency or human science. Critical psychologists who are attempting to do justice with and to human beings are not neglecting the onto-epistemic-ethical domain, but are instead focusing on people, often marginalized or oppressed groups. Critical psychologists who want to do justice in history, culture, and society have argued that traditional psychological practice means adaption and adjustment. This means that not only subjectivity, but also the discipline and profession of psychology need to be connected with contexts. Psychologists have attempted to conceptualize the relationship between society and the individual, as well as the ability of humans not only to adapt to an environment but to change their living conditions and transform the status quo. This conceptualization also means providing concrete analyses of how current society, based in neoliberal capitalism, not only impacts individuals but also the discipline of psychology. Despite the complexities of critical psychology around the world, critical psychologists emphasize the importance of reflexivity and praxis when it comes to changing the conditions of social reality that create mental life. Given that subjectivity cannot be limited to intra-psychological processes, critical psychologists attend to relational and structural societal realities, requiring inter- and transdisciplinarity in the discipline and profession.

Economic Theories of Discrimination

2018 ◽  
pp. 369-392
Author(s):  
Richard H. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Positive Theory ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Status Competition ◽  
Normative Economic ◽  
Antidiscrimination Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Status Theory

This paper examines the relationship between positive and normative economic theories of discrimination, that is, what discrimination is and why law should prohibit it. Prior economic scholarship has modelled discrimination as the result of (a) a taste for non-association; (b) statistically rational generalizations; and (c) group-based status competition. I examine these theories along with the psychological theory of implicit bias and other types of irrational stereotypes. For each positive theory, I explore the normative implications. The taste-based and statistical theories do not match well with antidiscrimination law, though the status theory potentially does.

Uses and Gratifications

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Lance Holbert
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Modeling ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Uses And Gratifications ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Research Framework ◽  
Media Research

This chapter summarizes uses and gratifications, a media research framework that asks why people consume certain media forms. The author explains the general framework of this approach to media, outlines the explanatory principles undergirding work of this kind, and identifies what is needed to move this research agenda toward more formal theory development. The issue of how best to measure gratifications sought, gratifications obtained, and media use is discussed. The chapter identifies three areas for potential developments (i.e., dynamic modeling, complementarity, expansion of communication inputs) within the uses and gratifications framework that may benefit political communication scholars. This issue of what media should be defined as “political” is also addressed, with an argument made for the inclusion of entertainment outlets.

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