science – PsyPhi

Psychology unite! 1.1 (decoder rings almost sold out)

Recently, PsyPost reports on ‘Universal’ personality traits not necessarily applying to isolated indigenous people (new window on click). They report that studying an isolated Bolivian society researchers found that the Tsimane culture not necessarily exhibited the five broad dimensions of personality, they also found more support for the “Big Two”.

Had personality been a concept belonging to the realm of positivism this is quite obviously not what one would find out observing the world. In a social constructionist realm though, this fits nicely with how SCism is defined. In a society with little to no contact with other more dominant societies, it is not necessarily so that you would find non-similar or other “personality-traits” than those belonging to the “Big Five”. There is just a higher probability, since the society has had the opportunity to ‘evolve’ under its own parameters that it has others. An obvious probability within this is that some or even all of the “personality-traits” found in larger or more dominant cultures actually will be found here too; we are all humans after all and over the earth we have a similar type of environmental demand on us as individuals -or perhaps rather, we have a finite number of demands on us. “Socially beneficial behaviour” and “industriousness”, as they claim have been found, well, look, we are most probably going to define any, one, behaviour as socially beneficial (odds are pretty high we will find at least one of these behaviours within a society, since there would be strange demands on a society to actually hold up if there are no socially beneficial behaviours). Finding that people actually behave beneficially towards one another within a cohesive group of people has very little utility.

An issue here is however that this may be used as a ‘universal’ claim from the side of personality. I claim the opposite. A behaviour, is going to be defined on a vastly grey scale, to be good, neutral or bad if we see to the consequences of that behaviour. The behaviour will first of all be placed on this scale wholly dependent on the situation it is in. Even killing another human being is sometimes considered appropriate in some cultures (and throughout history, we can see it has been appropriate in all cultures at one time or another). The issue is on the ‘beneficial’ part in this specific example, something being good or bad or neither is a value judgment that humans place on the world and that is not naturally existent. Another point being, it is not an inherent property of the behaviour to be ‘socially beneficial’ -and this argument can be extended to ‘industriousness’, not mixing in the good-bad grey scale argument. ‘Industriousness’ is a property we interpret a behaviour to have -it does not belong to the behaviour intrinsically -it depends on what socially constructed determinants define the behaviour to be.

In any case, I should also mention that supportive arguments and empirical observations do much less for a perspective or theory (like this post for my perspective) than does a non-falsified argument and empirical observation. It does however inform my previous post on (one of) the things I believe needs to be done in psychology to gain it the credibility it deserves. The previous post also has consequences for clinical psychology and psychiatry -something I am currently writing a post on and will publish soon on here.

Psychology unite! (decoder rings sold separately)

I’ve always had issues with personality as a scientific concept. Especially when it is taught by lecturers and professors as if it, and it’s subconcepts, are naturally existing. I should already clarify that “naturally existing” is a classification saved for concepts tied to things that would exist even without a conscious/independent mind (it will depend on your choice of favourite philosophy which you prefer, and it is unfortunately beyond this post to go too far into the philosophy on which it is based, which is a reason for me to stick to three main realms of knowledge, social constructionism, critical realism and positivism). I should also mention that I find it non-productive to discuss the point of view that all concepts tied to human activity as wholly socially constructed. The reason being that under that definition we ignore both vast amounts of unconscious processes, most often those shared with other animals, as well as our biological ancestry. If we developed from animals without (or lesser) capacity for conscious and lingual processing into animals with a greater capacity for those, then it would be foolish to ignore that those capacities developed on top of structures that, under a social construction definition, most likely would not pass its criteria for what exists and not. Personality is such a concept that I very much doubt to exist other than in the socially constructive realm. The correlations found in support of its existence are not smoke screens but are solely held up by virtue of social interaction itself. You can talk about behaviours belonging to a concept called extroversion, but, in my opinion, they are called upon by situational factors more so than an internally set characteristic. I base this opinion much so on the fact that I can behave very extrovertly in some situations and very introvertly in others and a better prediction of my behaviour is going to be based on the actual situational factors rather than what a personality test would say I am (disregard the fact that I am not convinced that the self actually exists or not.. yet.. see Bruce Hood, The Self Illusion for a thought-provoking perspective). At best, tests of personality tell the tester that this is the image/properties that the testee thinks he/she has and/or wishes to project to others. Even under this charitable definition there are considerable validity issues. For example, at its most general level, the image we wish to project to others and/or think we are is not equal to how we actually behave. One instance of this comes from that we are far less congruent in cognition and behaviour than we like to think. It is thus a real issue with personality that it only lives in the realm of social constructionism, it has no existence, necessarily, in a critical realist or positivist sense. In other words, there is no reflection in the part of reality existent without a conscious/independent mind. Because this concept has no reference point existentially, it will never be verified beyond its self-defined mechanism (which is inherent in anything denoted as a “concept”). So, why care about the ramblings of a mere master student of psychology in a country far far away? Because it has consequences beyond the war-torn concept of personality. It says something incredibly important about everything psychology has ever produced. “Is psychology a science?” and “Which departments within psychology are sciences and which are not?” are questions belonging to the infancy of the debate. It is futile and non-productive. All it does is to divide and create unnecessary conflict within a subject area that will hold the most important discoveries in the near future.

It is a foundational issue for psychology that it is rather easy to construct concepts from collections of behaviours, emotions and cognitions. You just need a pragmatic reason to do so, it need not reflect naturally occurring collected/related items. This type of critique is not usually limited to psychology but other subject areas have more rigorous checks and easier-to-spot red flags. In physics or chemistry, there is most often other ideas and knowledge that the new information needs to fit within. Because the objects of study are less ambiguous and more concretely defined, it is easier to understand if an idea is worth pursuing or not. In psychology, concepts are not as specifically defined because, among other reasons, the same behaviour (for example) in different contexts mean different things but can still be difficult to separate. Or, if looking at emotions it may sometimes be more useful to look at antecedents or consequences than the emotion itself (this specific example depends on your definition of emotion however, and I will refrain to delve deeper into it here). Also, the parts of reality psychological concepts are trying to cover usually contain yet other concepts and their definitions or parts of other concepts. Imagining circles partly covering eachother, even for distinctly defined concepts, there will be empty space covered or wanted information excluded). We, or perhaps you (since I don’t have a doctorate yet), need to be more careful, as scientists, when we posit things to exist. Because ultimately, coming from another discipline, even with the most rudimentary psychological knowledge, you are going to question the actual existence of some theories and concepts just by their face validity. Especially coming from disciplines where it is more natural to think of the concepts under study as naturally existing anyways. Psychology is the most difficult discipline to live within because it contains all the different types of existences that exists (ha!). At the moment, we don’t have this perspective on psychological concepts, we don’t have this perspective on everything psychological. I believe we will do ourselves and others a favour if we begin defining (and accepting) the concepts as socially constructed or whatever else. Because here is another important point, noting something as belonging to social construction, critical realism and positivism says very little about the value these concepts have for our understanding of the world. Rather, we can be honest with what we are working with, come to terms with that it is not psychology or any subdiscipline within the subject which is at fault, rather, it is all the information that psychological researchers have as their pet theories and want to naturally exist. This just is not the case and we would do ourselves a grand gesture to be clear to everyone else not doing psychological research if we were clearer in what realm we posit something to exist. Because it doesn’t matter for the information’s value. Also, it doesn’t safeguard the more positivist or critical realist existing concepts from falsehood. Intellectual honesty is a virtue, in the sense that we should not pretend about how things exist in the world, and the more we all stand up together for it, the greater understanding will come from others too. So what about the practical aspects?

Well, unfortunately, @GrahamCLDavey reminds me of all the consequences that comes with that the word scientific carries with it an unfortunate amount of credit (read his post). It is important for gaining economic means if we define something as scientific or not, for practically anything we wish to research. Maybe we would do ourselves a disservice if we start calling things by their names, since the consequence could be that socially constructed theories get less funding than more critical realist or positivist ones. Here, however, we could unite the psychological discipline, stand strong together and argue the value information has does not depend on which realm it exists in, but rather, what the theories actually can predict and not, their pragmatic value, their functional value. Also, even if it has the unfortunate consequence mentioned above, it will in the long run give ourselves a more solid platform to stand on. To know that I am not positing something to actually exist naturally in the world, gives us a framework to put those ideas in, it gains us information and understanding about the concept we otherwise would be ignorant of and lastly we will know how this knowledge will be affected by newer information once that comes along. It may just safeguard us from making the mistake of seeing our knowledge and pet theories as something static and it may just gain psychology the honest credibility it deserves in everyone’s eyes -not just our own.

*Update 07:48 5/1-13, full name on author of The Self Illusion.

If a Realist tree falls in an Idealist forest…

This age old question has indeed puzzled me since I first heard it when I was around 10 years old. I found it fascinating to be stumped by such a simple question because it seemed to intuitively contain both a yes and no answer. 15 years later I understood why.

I have been mentoring Master students in Psychology over the past month in Philosophy of Science and Psychology. We have covered the basics of Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, Positivism, Social Constructivism and all there is and more to these and other concepts. The most important question they’ve asked of me so far is probably ‘Why do we have to know this?’. I give my explanation to this in a quite simple manner, we get better at research and in life in general. Then I realised something else.

Most people I have ever met, has heard the question ‘If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to witness it, does it still make a sound? And how?’. I have never heard a satisfying answer, until I stumbled upon one myself (and I sure do hope I haven’t read it somewhere, forgot, and now commit to the attribution error).

Just like Qualia, the answer depends on how you believe things exist.

If you believe that there does exist a world independent of your mind (roughly, Realism), you can define ‘sound’ as air compressing and decompressing, and, that this is the only necessary characteristic of ‘sound’ to allow its existence. Then yes. It does make a sound. We can ‘know’ this because the conclusion logically and necessarily follows both from the premise of our definition of sound as well as with the laws of physics.

If you however believe that there does not exist a world independent of your mind (roughly, Idealism), you can define ‘sound’ as sense data, and, that this is a necessary characteristic of ‘sound’ to allow its existence. Then no. It does not make a sound. We can ‘know’ this because the necessary condition following from our premise of our definition of sound is not met.

Or so I, amongst other examples, exemplify how philosophy can solve conundrums -let alone find and define logical and practical issues and weaknesses in our cognitive efforts in research and real life. Then I go on to say, but if the esteemed lecturers or the book says any different, then you should trust them (and not only for obvious reasons, but) -if philosophy teaches me anything, then it teaches me how little I can know (so if you are holding non-truths about the world -don’t blame me!).

Between science(s) and (a) hard place(s)

Was reading a post on Psychology Today by Jonathan Wai and was displeased to note the stereotypic view coming from a physics major, alias ‘Order’. While I shared my opinion on his comment, I decided I would like to share a simplistic view on this. Anyone more interested in the dividing of the sciences should take a course/read up on philosophy of science -very interesting indeed!

Why does the hierarchy exist at all? Well, the first reason would be chronological order of fields introduced in Western universities (an arbitrary reason). The second, comes from the philosophical viewpoint of Positivism -something that has been central to research within (mainly) Physics, Chemistry and Biology. When psychology started establishing itself as a solitary field, (around the 1880s/90s with Wundt/James/Hall establishing psychology laboratories) the view of a “researcher” as a general concept, was one of high dignification, as well as the rigor and high regard for positivistic science. Already here psychology decided to borrow from existing sciences to increase its credibility. Psychology copied its philosophical underpinnings (positivism), physical look (for example, introducing white lab coats for psychologists/experimenters to mimic MDs), calling participants subjects (because they were being ‘subject’ed to a process, as well as, creating a power-relation between researchER and researchEE) and other (what would seem like) details in procedure and analysis. This, I believe was a misstep like no other, because, in my opinion psychology does not strictly live up to all the positivist ideals. I can go into this in excruciating detail, but will refrain unless asked [Or see my post ‘Nonsense.’ for a short intro].

I do not believe you can force a numerical structure on something that we can barely define yet. How is ’emotion’ defined? Differently in nearly every research report about it (yes, yes, there are two general ideas about the concept, but I’m keeping this simple). The point is that it does not have a generally agreed upon experimental definition. Then how are we supposed to measure quantitatively its properties? Here, hard sciences usually lobby the; “ha! Told you they weren’t a real science, they don’t even know what they are studying!”. And this is where I claim psychology is misunderstood. What is science? Exploring the physical world, gaining an understanding of how it works. So just because psychology hasn’t yet defined all the properties within its field, it isn’t a science? Isn’t the argument the opposite? _Because_ we are, probably more so than most fields, trying to get to definitions, experimenting on flawed existing ones to make them better, and so on, should Psychology not be seen as a frontier for science?

Method. We have a hard time controlling for extraneous variables, indeed we do. Randomisation is a good help but it doesn’t cover every single bias in every single experiment published. This is in my opinion, one of the most important flaws to be aware of in psychological science. Not too seldomly, the most pressing biases for the given experiment isn’t controlled for, isn’t discussed or in any other way documented. This gives rise to the retrospective, I-got-a-significant-result-with-a-decent-effect-but-was-it-really-the-intervention-that-caused-it, question.. (..yes that was a terribly worded and awkward sentence). It is right of everyone, from any field, to critici{s/z}e psychological experiments on the grounds of bias or uncontrolled for variables -because it leads to better experiments, better defined concepts, more rigorous methods and more reliable results. But. It is wrong to dismiss psychological experimenting like a naughty child _because we can’t do better_! Yes we can! (Bob the Builder, retrieved 10:57, 18th of June 2012)

An example, by the way, of why I call these opinions simplistic. Just within psychology, we have a broad range of subfields, for example neuropsychology, and it is able to and does follow positivistic philosophy more closely than for example social psychology. It more closely resembles biology and chemistry, and often rely on those fields for answering parts of the questions posed. In either case, there are more arguments, more detailed arguments and the issue is far more complex than what the above may make it seem like.

The reason why ‘I’m Christian unless you’re gay” sets a new standard. 2 Extended Thoughts

This is my opinion, my reason, why I choose to accept the assumptions proposed by science, as opposed to any other method of understanding the world.

We the people have different methods of dealing with the world, importance, I believe, is not to be put on _which type_ of method is chosen, but rather _the consequence_ of which one we choose. My choice of method is dependent on its predictability and utility, for others it may be a sense of being taken care of or a sense of safety. No reason is better or worse, true or false, they are merely different depending on what we need and perhaps, what we are raised to/have a disposition for/through experience develops a need for.

We thus choose method depending on what we need to rely on to give us the most compelling reasons for believing in it in the first place. In turn, the most compelling reason is the one that satisfies whatever need we have to be satisfied. Circular arguments do not get more circular than this, allow me to explicate.

Choices on method are varied and great in number, one may choose Religion A, B or C, a modified version A’, B’ or C’, an individually modified one A”, B” or C”, various forms of pseudosciences or sciences. Even within pseudoscience and science we tend to form smaller groups, similar to the previous contention that religion subdivides to a whole range of different methods of dealing with the world.

It comes down to that Individual A and Individual B are both as compelled to believe what its community tells them. Or, are as compelled to believe the conclusions they come to themselves when reviewing the canons of their method. Even justification for the individual is of the same valence. I.e. subjective feeling about one’s chosen method, I believe for psychological reasons, differs little between Individual A and Individual B.

My assertion is that science is a better method of dealing with the world because it has enormous predictive capability compared to any other method. It allows me to understand the world in a rhetoric and structure that satisfies my need for knowledge and stability. This is what is important to me personally.

Utility can be discussed endlessly, especially from a utilitarian perspective and the issue when discussed in folk tongue usually comes down to that of source. Who came up with what? Religion is the source vs Science is the source.

I can understand an argument for religion which states that people with a religion have been behind discoveries as well as atheists. However, this to me is a misconception, the purpose is not to deny religion, but what is to be discussed is not which method the individual relies on but the canons upon which the discoveries have stemmed from. A religious/atheist/XYZ person, relying on the canons of science to find information, uses science to direct the subject matter of his research.

Very few groundbreaking discoveries can be made from the bible, especially since it is not to be added to or explicitly changed -because it would not be God’s word (sorry, interpretation of God’s word). The same sentences are reinterpreted to fit our everchanging societies, which I think is good and well. Issues evolve however when there are clear contradictions, such as homosexuality being explicitly condemned in the bible but increasingly accepted in society. As a consequence, Individual B has a choice to modify her private belief to that of C or modify her method by changing it to B’ or B” so as to fit her private beliefs more congruently.

On the side of Science, its canons are rarely stable. In between revolutions, which change the fundamental foundations of our understanding of the world around us, we have the incremental progress within those foundations with additions, refinements and revokements. The best part is, even the lenses we use to see the structure of science through are subject to this process. Also, it matters little what one believes in science in respect to what is found in research. I may not like or believe that Theory A is false but I do not get to have an opinion unless it is backed up with value-free experiments/data (in which case it ceases to be opinion). This, to a certain extent, safeguards experiments from being entangled with what we _want_ the world to contain as opposed to what it _does_ contain. It doesn’t matter that people believe or not in the theory of evolution, as of yet thousands of experiments support it, and not one has been able to falsify it. I am thus forced to accept the assumptions of evolution regardless of how I subjectively see it, unless I can think of an even more compelling account of how to explain how life evolved from single-cell organisms to the variet of flora and fauna we see around us today.

These arguments persuade me to use the methods given by science to deal with the world around me. Just as a Christian, Muslim or any other religiously affiliated person would agree upon; the world (and indeed universe) is an absolutely stunning, awe-inspiring and mesmerising environment to be allowed to be a part of.