scholarly journals The Practice of Experimental Psychology: An Inevitably Postmodern Endeavor

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Mayrhofer ◽  
Christof Kuhbandner ◽  
Corinna Lindner
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Modern Approach ◽  
The Times ◽  
Carbon Copy ◽  
Complex Phenomena ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Postmodern Thinking

The aim of psychology is to understand the human mind and behavior. In contemporary psychology, the method of choice to accomplish this incredibly complex endeavor is the experiment. This dominance has shaped the whole discipline from the self-concept as an empirical science and its very epistemological and theoretical foundations, via research practice and the scientific discourse to teaching. Experimental psychology is grounded in the scientific method and positivism, and these principles, which are characteristic for modern thinking, are still upheld. Despite this apparently stalwart adherence to modern principles, experimental psychology exhibits a number of aspects which can best be described as facets of postmodern thinking although they are hardly acknowledged as such. Many psychologists take pride in being “real natural scientists” because they conduct experiments, but it is particularly difficult for psychologists to evade certain elements of postmodern thinking in view of the specific nature of their subject matter. Postmodernism as a philosophy emerged in the 20th century as a response to the perceived inadequacy of the modern approach and as a means to understand the complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions of the times. Therefore, postmodernism offers both valuable insights into the very nature of experimental psychology and fruitful ideas on improving experimental practice to better reflect the complexities and ambiguities of human mind and behavior. Analyzing experimental psychology along postmodern lines begins by discussing the implications of transferring the scientific method from fields with rather narrowly defined phenomena—the natural sciences—to a much broader and more heterogeneous class of complex phenomena, namely the human mind and behavior. This ostensibly modern experimental approach is, however, per se riddled with postmodern elements: (re-)creating phenomena in an experimental setting, including the hermeneutic processes of generating hypotheses and interpreting results, is no carbon copy of “reality” but rather an active construction which reflects irrevocably the pre-existing ideas of the investigator. These aspects, analyzed by using postmodern concepts like hyperreality and simulacra, did not seep in gradually but have been present since the very inception of experimental psychology, and they are necessarily inherent in its philosophy of science. We illustrate this theoretical analysis with the help of two examples, namely experiments on free will and visual working memory. The postmodern perspective reveals some pitfalls in the practice of experimental psychology. Furthermore, we suggest that accepting the inherently fuzzy nature of theoretical constructs in psychology and thinking more along postmodern lines would actually clarify many theoretical problems in experimental psychology.

PERSEPSI MASYARAKAT DESA SAYANG RW 03 KECAMATAN JATINANGOR KABUPATEN SUMEDANG TERHADAP PENTINGNYA PROTEKSI KENDARAAN BERMOTOR

Dharmakarya ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 145
Author(s):  
Lienda Noviyanti
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Vehicle Ownership ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Individual Knowledge ◽  
The Times ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Motorized Vehicles ◽  
Perception Survey ◽  
Made In ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

As the times and technology became more sophisticated, human needs and mobility also increased. One such technology is vehicle. It cannot be denied that motorized vehicles and cars have now become the most important parts of everyday life. Vehicle protection is very important to keep vehicles safe, especially in areas prone to theft. Protection of the vehicle itself is divided into two ways, namely by personal and insurance methods. The fact is that vehicle protection carried out by Desa Sayang residents is still very minimal, which is caused by a lack of knowledge and understanding of citizens about the importance of vehicle protection. Seen from only a few residents who have insurance services to protect their vehicles. Measuring the perceptions of residents of RW 03 Desa Sayang, Jatinangor Subdistrict, Sumedang Regency is divided into 2 things, namely knowledge (cognition) and behavior (konasi). Of the 97 informants interviewed, it was found that people's knowledge of insurance was not good. While their knowledge of vehicle protection in general is quite good. In addition, vehicle ownership also affects individual knowledge of insurance and vehicle protection. Unfortunately, protection of vehicles in the form of insurance is rarely done by residents because most are hampered in terms of costs and feel they do not need it. Therefore, a perception survey and vehicle protection socialization were made in Sayang Village, Jatinangor Sub-District, Sumedang Regency so that residents would be more aware of maintaining their vehicles.

Why a Focus on Eminence is Misguided: A Call to Return to Basic Scientific Values

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine S. Corker
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Information Source ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Reward Systems ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Eradicate Polio ◽  
And Behavior

The scientific method has been used to eradicate polio, send humans to the moon, and enrich understanding of human cognition and behavior. It produced these accomplishments not through magic or appeals to authority, but through open, detailed, and reproducible methods. To call something “science” means there are clear ways to independently and empirically evaluate research claims. There is no need to simply trust an information source. Scientific values thus prioritize transparency and universalism, emphasizing that it matters less who has made a discovery than how it was done. Yet, scientific reward systems are based on identifying individual eminence. The current paper contrasts this focus on individual eminence with reforms to scientific rewards systems that help these systems better align with scientific values.

scholarly journals Peirce’s Classification of the Sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-278
Author(s):  
Torjus Midtgarden
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
The One ◽  
Philosophical Pragmatism

Charles Peirce’s classification of the sciences was designed shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. The classification has two main sources of inspiration: Comte’s science classification and Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Peirce’s classification, like that of Comte, is hierarchically organised in that the more general and abstract sciences provide principles for the less general and more concrete sciences. However, Peirce includes and assigns a superordinate role to philosophical disciplines which analyse and provide logical, methodological and ontological principles for the specialised sciences, and which are based on everyday life experience. Moreover, Peirce recognises two main branches of specialised empirical science: the natural sciences, on the one hand, and the social sciences, the humanities and psychology on the other. While both branches share logical and methodological principles, they are based on different ontological principles in studying physical nature and the human mind and its products, respectively. Peirce’s most basic philosophical discipline, phenomenology, transforms his early engagement with Kant. Peirce’s classification of aesthetics, ethics and logic as normative sub-disciplines of philosophy relate to his philosophical pragmatism. Yet his more overarching division between theoretical (philosophical and specialised) sciences and practical sciences may be seen as problematic. Taking Peirce’s historical account of scientific developments into consideration, however, I argue that his science classification and its emphasis on the interdependencies between the sciences could be seen as sustaining and supporting interdisciplinarity and interaction across fields of research, even across the divide between theoretical and practical sciences.

scholarly journals Metacognition: A new cognitive paradigm

Psihologija ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milos Kankaras
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Thinking Processes ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
And Control ◽  
Metacognitive Experiences

This article reviews concept of metacognition, defined as: (a) knowledge about ones own cognitive activity, (b) strategies to monitor and regulate cognitive activity and behavior, and (c) subjective or metacognitive experiences which comes from some changes or temporary difficulties in cognitive functioning. While describing different conceptualizations of metacognition, its development, fields of application, relation with intelligence, and its constrictions and ambiguity, we attempt to present new and emerging metacognitive paradigm, which is, for a relatively short period, succeeded to improve, expand, and redefine wide range of theoretical and practical fields in psychology, on new and original way. How do we become conscious of our own cognitive processes? What role and significance that consciousness has, what is the functional level above thinking processes and how that level, which monitor and control cognitive activity, works. Metacognition is concept that presents, as so far, the most important insight in those human mind areas, which, although very important, remained on the margin of psychological investigations until now.

scholarly journals Hayek, las ciencias y la praxeología

2017 ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Luis Luque Santoro
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
Science Methodology ◽  
Complex Phenomena

This paper includes the main conclusions driven from a thorough com-pilation and interpretation of F.A. Hayek’s most relevant views on the subjects of philosophy of science, epistemology and methodology regarding social scien-ces. The dialogue that Hayek seems to establish between sciences and methods is particularly highlighted. This dialogue might be summarized in two ways: a «bottom-up» connection, by offering an alternative justification for methodologi-cal dualism and the proper methodological principles for the social sciences, from the perspetive of the natural sciences methodological paradigm in which Hayek frames his human mind theory in his work The Sensory Order; and a «top-down» connection, by concluding with respect to the complex phenomena theo-ries of natural sciences that there exist common methodological challenges with the social sciences, which require in both cases to take into account methodolo-gical differences not covered under the orthodox mainstream methodological paradigm. In this sense an interpretation of Hayek’s methodological approxima-tion to economics as an applied or empirical social science is proposed; which intends to offer explanations about concrete reality, as a necessary complement of Mises praxeology which instead only focuses on pure and formal theory. Keywords: Hayek; Philosophy of Science; Methodology; Praxeology; Pure Logic of Choice. JEL Classification: A12, A14, B41, B53. Resumen: En este trabajo se presentan las principales conclusiones de una detenida compilación e interpretación de los planteamientos más importantes de F.A. Hayek sobre temas de filosofía de la ciencia, epistemología y metodo - logía de las ciencias sociales. En particular se resalta el diálogo que Hayek parece plantear entre ciencias y métodos y que se concretaría en dos senti-dos: en una conexión «por abajo», justificando el dualismo metodológico y los principios metodológicos adecuados para las ciencias sociales, desde el paradigma metodológico de las ciencias naturales en el que elabora su teoría sobre la mente humana en El Orden Sensorial; y en una conexión «por arriba» al concluir respecto a las teorías sobre fenómenos complejos de las ciencias naturales la existencia de retos comunes con los que también se enfrentan las ciencias sociales y que requieren dar cabida en ambos casos a diferencias metodológicas no previstas según el criterio ortodoxo dominante. En este último sentido, se propone una interpretación de la aproximación metodoló-gica de Hayek para la economía como una ciencia social aplicada o empí-rica que tiene como objetivo ofrecer explicaciones de la realidad, como el complemento necesario a la praxeología misesiana centrada en la teoría pura formal. Palabras clave: Hayek; Filosofía de la Ciencia; Metodología; Praxeología; Lógica Pura de la Elección. Clasificación JEL: A12 (Relación de la economía con otras disciplinas); A14 (Sociología de la economía); B41 (Metodología económica); B53 (Escuela aus-triaca).

Awe Without Wonder

2018 ◽  
pp. 315-322
Author(s):  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
And Control

This concluding chapter summarizes the major points achieved in the previous chapters and further reflects on this volume's findings about human culture. It considers why the evolution of culture proved difficult for researchers for the very same reasons as understanding the origins of the human mind has proved challenging to the broader scientific community. The human cultural capability did not evolve in isolation but in intricate coevolution with central aspects of cognition and behavior; including our language, teaching, intelligence, perspective-taking, powers of computation, cooperative tendencies, tool use, memory, and control of the environment. In struggling to understand the origins of culture, some light on the origins of the human mind, language, and intelligence might have been shed. Yet while all these efforts to better understand culture might have lessened the sense of wonderment one might feel at the scope of human achievement, this chapter notes that it still continues to inspire awe.

scholarly journals Sense or non-sense? a critical discussion of a recent evolutionary–cognitive approach to “folk-economic beliefs”

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theiss Bendixen
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Dual Inheritance Theory ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Massive Modularity ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Environment Of Evolutionary Adaptedness ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Dual Inheritance

Laypeople hold beliefs about economics and policy issues—so-called folk-economic beliefs (FEBs)—that are often wrong or misleading according to professional economists. Here, I critically discuss a recent evolutionary–cognitive approach to understanding folk-economic beliefs. According to this approach (Boyer & Petersen 2018a), some economic beliefs are more prevalent than others, because such beliefs (i.e., folk-economic beliefs) resonate with evolved features of the human mind. I refer to this as the “FEB hypothesis”. A central challenge to the FEB hypothesis, with its heavy reliance on universal cognitive features, is to explain individual and cultural differences in economic beliefs and behavior. This challenge is the starting point for the discussion. Overall, the conclusion of this paper is that the FEB hypothesis relies on unnecessarily strong and controversial theoretical assumptions (e.g., “massive modularity” and the “Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness”), and that it overlooks important findings from adjacent fields, but that the FEB hypothesis, following some modifications inspired by Dual Inheritance Theory, can be integrated with robust findings from the rest of the evolutionary, cognitive, and anthropological sciences, as well as standard political psychology. Based on this discussion, the paper ends with brief reflections on how to correct inaccurate folk-economic beliefs.

The Painted Mind

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Troisi
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Clinical Findings ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
Full Page ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Clinical Psychiatrist ◽  
Original Feature

The scientific focus of this book is on the human mind and behavior viewed from an evolutionary perspective. The author is a clinical psychiatrist but his research background ranges from primate ethology to neuroscience, behavioral biology to molecular genetics, and Darwinian psychiatry to evolutionary psychology. Discussion of emotions, cognitive capacities, and behaviors integrates a variety of research and clinical findings that, ultimately, can be reduced to the evolutionary distinction between proximate mechanisms and adaptive functions. An original feature of the book is that it combines science and art. Each chapter is inspired by a painting masterpiece, and a substantial portion of the text is devoted to introducing the reader to the artistic significance of the works and to biographical notes concerning the painters who made them. In addition, each painting is accurately reproduced in a full-page color plate. Description of the evolutionary theories that explain how the human mind works are intermixed with the critical discussion of the perspectives of humanistic disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, religion, or literature. In order to give the reader lively examples of psychological and behavioral patterns, the chapters are filled with stories of people—stories of literary characters, stories of historical characters, and clinical cases.

Social Ecology

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigehiro Oishi ◽  
Jesse Graham
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
History Of ◽  
Basic And Applied Research ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
And Behavior

This article presents a socioecological approach (accounting for physical, societal, and interpersonal environments) to psychological theorizing and research. First, we demonstrate that economic systems, political systems, religious systems, climates, and geography exert a distal yet important influence on human mind and behavior. Second, we summarize the historical precedents of socioecological psychology. There have been several waves of ecological movements with distinct emphases in the history of psychological science, such as K. Lewin’s (1936, 1939) field theory and U. Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological approach to human development. Environmental and community psychologies, created in the late 1960s and early 1970s, promoted social activism through basic and applied research on ecological factors and social outcomes. Most recently, the rise of cultural psychology has encouraged psychologists to pay attention to cultural factors in basic psychological processes, but note that less attention has been given to socioecological factors per se. We highlight the benefits of bringing the socioecological perspective back to mainstream psychological theorizing and research.

Brain Basis of Human Social Interaction: From Concepts to Brain Imaging

2009 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riitta Hari ◽  
Miiamaaria V. Kujala
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Brain Imaging ◽  
Imaging Study ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Single Person ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Socially Relevant ◽  
And Behavior

Modern neuroimaging provides a common platform for neuroscience and related disciplines to explore the human brain, mind, and behavior. We base our review on the social shaping of the human mind and discuss various aspects of brain function related to social interaction. Despite private mental contents, people can share their understanding of the world using, beyond verbal communication, nonverbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions, and postures. The understanding of nonverbal messages is supported by the brain's mirroring systems that are shaped by individual experience. Within the organism-environment system, tight links exist between action and perception, both within an individual and between several individuals. Therefore, any comprehensive brain imaging study of the neuronal basis of social cognition requires appreciation of the situated and embodied nature of human cognition, motivating simultaneous monitoring of brain and bodily functions within a socially relevant environment. Because single-person studies alone cannot unravel the dynamic aspects of interpersonal interactions, it seems both necessary and beneficial to move towards “two-person neuroscience”; technological shortcomings and a limited conceptual framework have so far hampered such a leap. We conclude by discussing some major disorders of social interaction.

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