Department of Health, Social and Welfare Studies, University of South-Eastern Norway, Kjølnes Ring 56, 3918, Porsgrunn, Norway.
Integr Psychol Behav Sci. 2022 Mar;56(1):308-319. doi: 10.1007/s12124-020-09573-w.
In their article Psychology: a Giant with Feet of Clay, Zagaria, Andò and Zennaro aim to clean up the confusing and inconsistent conceptual landscape in current psychology. They find that evolutionary psychology with its dialectical focus on nature and nurture could be the unifying meta-theory that contemporary psychology is depending on in order to compete with harder sciences, such as biology and physiology. The aim of developing a unified conceptual consensus in psychology is flattering. However, the view depends on a worldview that one can reach a psychological science with objective properties through universal concepts that are non-effected by cognitive factors. My point of view is that psychological concepts carry a great deal of implicit theoretical baggage because they come with rich connotations, acquired through everyday usage. My view has got a methodological point that leads to considerations concerning the question: how psychologists are to study concepts in order to understand them? To grasp the meaning of a given concept in its context means to understand not only its literal meaning but also how it can be applied to the world and what is done by it. All these dimensions of the meaning of a concept are deeply rooted in the respective diachronic and synchronic contexts, and that is why a psychologist should be radically prepared to change her or his expectations considering the meaning of any concept under study.
在他们的文章《心理学：一块有黏土脚的巨人》中，扎加里亚、安多和泽纳罗旨在清理当前心理学中混乱和不一致的概念领域。他们发现，进化心理学以其对自然和教养的辩证关注，可能是当代心理学所依赖的统一元理论，以便与生物学和生理学等更硬的科学竞争。在心理学中发展统一的概念共识的目标是值得称赞的。然而，这种观点取决于一种世界观，即通过不受认知因素影响的普遍概念，可以达到具有客观属性的心理学科学。我的观点是，心理概念带有大量隐含的理论包袱，因为它们通过日常使用获得了丰富的内涵。我的观点有一个方法论上的观点，这导致了对以下问题的考虑：心理学家应该如何研究概念以理解它们？在上下文中理解一个给定概念的含义意味着不仅要理解其字面含义，还要理解它如何应用于世界以及它做了什么。一个概念的所有这些意义维度都深深地植根于各自的历时和共时语境中，这就是为什么心理学家应该彻底准备好根据正在研究的任何概念的意义来改变她或他的期望。
