Operationism in Psychology
An Epistemology of Exploration
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Operationism in Psychology
An Epistemology of Exploration
Analyzes psychological research to offer insights into how methodological and ontological questions are intertwined.
Psychology has seen an intense debate about the lack of replicability of results in recent years. Uljana Feest uses the history and philosophy of science to shed light on the nature of experiment in psychology in general, but her aim reaches beyond debates about replication to provide a novel and comprehensive analysis of the investigative process in experimental psychology. She shows that the central unit of analysis for our epistemological considerations of psychological research should not be theories but, rather, concepts. Her guiding question is, “How do psychological concepts figure in the experimental exploration of the objects of psychological research?” For Feest, this question has two intertwined aspects: what role do concepts play in the design of experiments and the production of data, and how can concepts be revised or adapted in response to experimental results? Following the historical trajectory of debates about operationism in psychology, she argues that this debate was not concerned with philosophical theories of meaning, but was, rather, closely connected to the investigative practices of experimental psychologists. The book offers a broad analytical framework for thinking philosophically about the investigative process in psychology, including analyses of the relationship between data and phenomena in psychology, the relationship between folk- and scientific psychological concepts, the relationship between genuine results and experimental artifacts, and the nature and exploration of psychological kinds.
Psychology has seen an intense debate about the lack of replicability of results in recent years. Uljana Feest uses the history and philosophy of science to shed light on the nature of experiment in psychology in general, but her aim reaches beyond debates about replication to provide a novel and comprehensive analysis of the investigative process in experimental psychology. She shows that the central unit of analysis for our epistemological considerations of psychological research should not be theories but, rather, concepts. Her guiding question is, “How do psychological concepts figure in the experimental exploration of the objects of psychological research?” For Feest, this question has two intertwined aspects: what role do concepts play in the design of experiments and the production of data, and how can concepts be revised or adapted in response to experimental results? Following the historical trajectory of debates about operationism in psychology, she argues that this debate was not concerned with philosophical theories of meaning, but was, rather, closely connected to the investigative practices of experimental psychologists. The book offers a broad analytical framework for thinking philosophically about the investigative process in psychology, including analyses of the relationship between data and phenomena in psychology, the relationship between folk- and scientific psychological concepts, the relationship between genuine results and experimental artifacts, and the nature and exploration of psychological kinds.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Toward an Epistemology of Exploration in Psychology
1. Topic and Main Theses of the Book
2. Contexts of Discovery and Justification
3. Integrating Philosophy of Science and History of Science
4. Objects of Research: Moving Targets of Scientific Investigation
5. Addressing the Crisis of Confidence in Psychology
6. Does My Analysis Generalize beyond Psychology?
7. A Quick Overview of the Chapters
1. Operationism in Psychology: (Some) Historical Beginnings
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Stanley Smith Stevens and the Operational Treatment of Sensations
1.3. Of Rats and Psychologists: An Analysis of E. C. Tolman’s Operationism
1.4. Clark Hull and the Role of Operationism in Theory Construction
1.5. Conclusion
2. Operationism: The Second Generation
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Early Debates (1930s/1940s)
2.3. Some Midcentury Developments (Interlude)
2.4. The Construct Validation of Psychological Tests (1955)
2.5. Converging Operations
2.6. Conclusion
3. Operational Definitions as Tools
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Operational Definitions and Research Designs in Memory Research
3.3. Operational Definitions as Tools: What Do They Do?
3.4. Conceptual Development and Reference: Another Look at the Case Studies
3.5. Operational Definitions vis-à-vis Philosophical Analyses of Concepts
3.6. Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice
3.7. Conclusion
4. Objects of Research as Targets of Exploration
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Delineating and Describing Objects of Research: A First Approximation
4.3. Describing Empirical Features of Objects of Research
4.4. Exploratory Research
4.5. Conclusion
5. Phenomena and Objects of Research
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Phenomena vs. Data and vs. Objects of Research? Conceptual Groundwork
5.3. Objects of Psychological Research as Explanandum Phenomena?
5.4. Psychological Discovery as Phenomenal Decomposition?
5.5. Toward an Analysis of Norms of Exploration in Psychology
5.6. Conclusion
6. What Kinds of Things Are Psychological Kinds?
6.1. Introduction
6.2. (Natural) Kinds: Setting the Stage
6.3. Pluralism, Mechanisms, and the Whole Organism
6.4. Similarity Judgments at the Whole-Organism Level: Echoes from Ecological Psychology
6.5. Psychological Kinds and Cognitive Ontology
6.6. Conclusion
7. Operational Analysis and Converging Operations
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Inferences in Psychological Experiments
7.3. Experimental Inferences as Constrained by Operational Analysis
7.4. Converging Operations
7.5. So What Do Converging Operations Converge On?
7.6. Conclusion
Concluding Remarks
1. Introduction
2. Main Points
3. Current Relevance and Future Directions
Acknowledgments
References
Index
1. Topic and Main Theses of the Book
2. Contexts of Discovery and Justification
3. Integrating Philosophy of Science and History of Science
4. Objects of Research: Moving Targets of Scientific Investigation
5. Addressing the Crisis of Confidence in Psychology
6. Does My Analysis Generalize beyond Psychology?
7. A Quick Overview of the Chapters
1. Operationism in Psychology: (Some) Historical Beginnings
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Stanley Smith Stevens and the Operational Treatment of Sensations
1.3. Of Rats and Psychologists: An Analysis of E. C. Tolman’s Operationism
1.4. Clark Hull and the Role of Operationism in Theory Construction
1.5. Conclusion
2. Operationism: The Second Generation
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Early Debates (1930s/1940s)
2.3. Some Midcentury Developments (Interlude)
2.4. The Construct Validation of Psychological Tests (1955)
2.5. Converging Operations
2.6. Conclusion
3. Operational Definitions as Tools
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Operational Definitions and Research Designs in Memory Research
3.3. Operational Definitions as Tools: What Do They Do?
3.4. Conceptual Development and Reference: Another Look at the Case Studies
3.5. Operational Definitions vis-à-vis Philosophical Analyses of Concepts
3.6. Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice
3.7. Conclusion
4. Objects of Research as Targets of Exploration
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Delineating and Describing Objects of Research: A First Approximation
4.3. Describing Empirical Features of Objects of Research
4.4. Exploratory Research
4.5. Conclusion
5. Phenomena and Objects of Research
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Phenomena vs. Data and vs. Objects of Research? Conceptual Groundwork
5.3. Objects of Psychological Research as Explanandum Phenomena?
5.4. Psychological Discovery as Phenomenal Decomposition?
5.5. Toward an Analysis of Norms of Exploration in Psychology
5.6. Conclusion
6. What Kinds of Things Are Psychological Kinds?
6.1. Introduction
6.2. (Natural) Kinds: Setting the Stage
6.3. Pluralism, Mechanisms, and the Whole Organism
6.4. Similarity Judgments at the Whole-Organism Level: Echoes from Ecological Psychology
6.5. Psychological Kinds and Cognitive Ontology
6.6. Conclusion
7. Operational Analysis and Converging Operations
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Inferences in Psychological Experiments
7.3. Experimental Inferences as Constrained by Operational Analysis
7.4. Converging Operations
7.5. So What Do Converging Operations Converge On?
7.6. Conclusion
Concluding Remarks
1. Introduction
2. Main Points
3. Current Relevance and Future Directions
Acknowledgments
References
Index