Toward a Process Approach in Psychology

Stepping into Heraclitus' River

Paul van Geert, Naomi de Ruiter

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781108490900
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108857895
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Psychological science constructs much of the knowledge that we consume in our everyday lives. This book is a systematic analysis of this process, and of the nature of the knowledge it produces. The authors show how mainstream scientific activity treats psychological properties as being fundamentally stable, universal, and isolable. They then challenge this status quo by inviting readers to recognize that dynamics, context-specificity, interconnectedness, and uncertainty, are a natural and exciting part of human psychology – these are not things to be avoided and feared, but instead embraced. This requires a shift toward a process-based approach that recognizes the situated, time-dependent, and fundamentally processual nature of psychological phenomena. With complex dynamic systems as a framework, this book sketches out how we might move toward a process-based praxis that is more suitable and effective for understanding human functioning.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: An Invitation to Step into Heraclitus’ River
• Chapter 1 Change, the Final Frontier: Introducing a Process Approach to Psychology
• Chapter 2 A (Selected) Foundation for a Process Approach: Complex Dynamic Systems Theory
• Chapter 3 The Goal of Socrates: Philosophical Foundations for a Value-Laden, Action-Based Praxis of Research
• Chapter 4 Esteeming Entities: Enacting a Substance Ontology in Self-Esteem Research
• Chapter 5 A Person Acting amongst Persons: Enacting a Process Ontology in Self-Esteem Research
• Chapter 6 Cliffhangers and Utilitarian Infants: On How Classification and Science Communication Create Worlds
• Chapter 7 Causes, Kings, and Interventions: Causality and Explanation in Mainstream Psychological Theory and Research
• Chapter 8 (Compl)explanation and King Alfonso’s Lament: Complex Dynamic Systems and Causal Explanation
• Chapter 9 What’s in a Name?: On the Ontology of Psychological Measurement
• Chapter 10 (Un)Certainties: Epistemological Issues of Psychological Measurement
• Chapter 11 Troubled Waters of Heraclitus’ River?: A Process View on Reproducibility and Generalization in Psychological Research
• Chapter 12 Psychological Science as a Complex Dynamic System: From an Entrenched Substance-Oriented Praxis to the Emergence of a Process-Oriented Praxis
• Glossary
• References
• Index