Abstract
Over the twentieth century, psychology has adopted the scheme of causal thinking that involves the S → R (stimulus → response) basic structure. It brings into the thinking of psychologists the axiomatic acceptance of linear causality (“S causes R”) without a focus on elaboration of how the supposed process of causing actually operates. In the experimental and quasi-experimental practices of research, that scheme has become contextualized as the practice of specifying “independent” (manipulable) and “dependent” (outcome) factors called “variables,” creating the illusion of the researcher’s control over the processes under investigation in a context of an experiment (or its derivatives, such as questionnaires or interviews). This is unrealistic in the case of human psychological processes that are of the character of open systems characterized not by “effects” but by exchange relations with the environment (exemplified by Dewey in his replacement the “reflex arc” by the “reflex circle”) which operate on the basis of cyclical (catalyzed) rather than linear causality. The result is a situation—well captured by Ludwig Wittgenstein—that in psychology the problems and methods pass each other by. We trace the history of the terminology of “independent” variable as it became used in psychology, discuss the philosophical underpinnings of the notion of “variable” in a universe of dynamically structured and normatively guided psychological phenomena, and suggest that the notion of “variables” be abandoned and replaced by other concepts that would capture the qualitative nature of the human phenomena more adequately.
Psychology should rely on qualitative studies that go beyond observation of quantitative relationships between variables; studies should take into account that the phenomenon under study, mind, only manifests in behavior; qualitative levels of analysis should be clearly distinguished, it should be taken into account that elements in a whole cannot be independent in principle; studies should focus on cases instead of groups; typology is the main methodological tool for generalization in psychology; prediction without insight, without substantive theory, should not be acceptable, selection of facts should be systematically guided by theory; and scholars should not constrain themselves to interpretation of data provided by convenient methodological tools, such as statistical data analysis—psychologist should be more interested in thinking about the meaning of collected facts than in the accumulation of facts as such.
Aaro Toomela ( 2008 ), p. 262
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Notes
- 1.
In researchers’ vernacular, “dependent variable”—some characteristic that varies as a result of changed experimental conditions.
- 2.
The “independent variable”—a characteristic that the researcher changes at the input, or pretends to vary (e.g., gender as “independent variable”) and that is assumed to lead to changes in some outcome (“dependent variable”).
- 3.
The “intervening variable”—something that “mediates” the “independent” and “dependent” variable.
- 4.
A male clinical counselor told the story, decades after it happened, of interviewing an adolescent girl who, in response to the politically correct intervention to inquire if she has already entered the world of sexual relations (“Are you sexually active?”) in full honesty and openness, responded, “No, I just lay there.”
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Acknowledgments
This chapter was prepared with the support of Danske Grundforskningsfond through the Niels Bohr Professorship (J.V.) and a Sapere Aude study (Diagnostic Culture) funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research. Grant No. 12-125597 (S.B.).
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Valsiner, J., Brinkmann, S. (2016). Beyond the “Variables”: Developing Metalanguage for Psychology. In: Klempe, S., Smith, R. (eds) Centrality of History for Theory Construction in Psychology . Annals of Theoretical Psychology, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42760-7_4
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