Inching toward a unified metatheory for psychology

At the least, I suggest a unified metatheory must: a establish a shared psychological lexicon; b elaborate a methodology that coordinates first-, second- and third-person modes of inquir

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Integrative Psychological and

Behavioral Science

ISSN 1932-4502

Integr psych behav.

DOI 10.1007/s12124-020-09543-2

Psychology

Michael F. Mascolo

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B R I E F C O M M U N I C A T I O N

Inching Toward a Unified Metatheory for Psychology

Michael F Mascolo1

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract

Zagaria et al (2020) have aptly suggested that as a discipline, psychology is a giant with feet of clay Drawing on the content of introductory textbooks, the authors show that there is little coherence and consensus about the meaning of key psychological

terms – including such terms as psychology, mind, behavior Drawing on evidence

marking psychology is a “soft” science, the authors suggest that psychology can profit

by adopting the “hard” foundation of evolutionary psychology as its metatheory While Zagaria et al.’s characterization of psychology’s fractious foundation has deep merit, their desire to erect a psychological metatheory on evolutionary psychology is unlikely

to solve the problem they so aptly identify At the least, I suggest a unified metatheory

must: (a) establish a shared psychological lexicon; (b) elaborate a methodology that coordinates first-, second- and third-person modes of inquiry, and (c) develop a process model that describes psychological functioning at the biological, psychological and

socio-cultural levels of analysis To illustrate, I describe how contemporary relational and systems frameworks provide a framework that can move us in these directions

Keywords Metatheory Evolutionary psychology Intersubjectivity Mind Psychology Unification

Zagaria et al (2020) have written an important and penetrating critique of the discipline

of psychology and its capacity to function as a science They have argued, successfully

in my view, that there is a profound lack of consensus among psychological scientists about central and foundational concepts in the field This includes concepts that are

generally thought to provide the intellectual grounding of the field, including psychol-ogy, mind, behavior, as well as concepts that are taken to refer to particular classes of psychological processes – cognition, consciousness, thinking, feeling, emotion, decid-ing, and so forth They have suggested that the conceptual foundations on which theory

* Michael F Mascolo

mascolom@merrimack.edu

1

Department of Psychology, Merrimack College, North Andover, MA 01970, USA

and research in psychology are erected stand, in their words, on amorphous feet made

of clay They argue that there is a need to develop a coherent psychological metatheory – a set of foundational concepts that can move psychology from its current pre-paradigmatic state to an increasingly unified system of scientific concepts and presup-positions Having its origins in the “hard” rather than “soft” presuppositions of the

biological sciences, the authors nominate evolutionary psychology as a possible

meta-theoretical framework for psychological science

Zagaria et al (2020) have appropriately diagnosed psychology’s struggle to con-struct a shared conceptual foundation I am less confident about their proposed cure – the idea of evolutionary psychology as psychological metatheory In what follows, to explain why, I first reflect upon the problem of conceptual clarification in psychology I argue that conceptual confusion has its origins not in the so-called “softness” of psychology, but instead in our collective failure in developing a psychological science framed in its own terms To make progress toward a unified framework, there is a need

to understand psychological concepts at the psychological level itself, while

simulta-neously seeking to understand how psychological processes are both biologically-embodied and culturally-embedded This cannot be done by emulating the methods

of the “hard” sciences To understand their subject matter, natural scientists do not need

to consider how the objects of their inquiry (atoms, projectiles or organ systems) experience their worlds; psychological scientists, however, cannot do otherwise In this way, the processes by which humans gain psychological knowledge are fundamentally different from those that they use to understand particles, objects and bodies (Valsiner and Brinkmann2016) From this perspective, conceptual clarity in psychology cannot

be achieved from within the objective versus subjective polarity that typically structures

discourse in psychological science It can be achieved, however, through the intersub-jective analysis of experience as it arises in relations between people in joint action

(Mascolo2016,2017)

In what follows, I first engage in a brief examination of Zagaria et al.’s (2020) call for a unified psychology In response to their call, I suggest that, at

minimum, any unified metatheory must: (a) establish a shared psychological lexicon; (b) elaborate a methodology that embraces the full range of possible forms of inquiry; and (c) develop a process model that describes psychological

functioning at the biological, psychological and socio-cultural levels of analysis

I then describe how contemporary relational and systems frameworks can move

us in the direction of a unified psychological metatheory Systems frameworks seek to understand how psychological structures emerge within multi-nested organism-environment systems Person-environment systems are mutually con-stituted at the biological, psychological and socio-cultural levels of functioning Although psychological processes are emergent biological systems, they must

be understood at their own level of functioning To do so, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of psychological concepts through a refinement of the relational processes by which we gain psychological knowledge in the first

place – namely intersubjective engagement between people (Mascolo and Kallio

2020) Drawing on methodologies that integrate first, second and third person forms of inquiry, I propose a relational process model of psychological func-tioning that identifies how psychological structures self-organize within the context of the multi-layered person-environment system

Can Evolutionary Psychology Function as a Psychological

Meta-Theory?

Zagaria et al (2020) put forth a series of arguments to support their suggestion that evolutionary psychology can function as a meta-theory for psychology First, drawing

on an interesting body of bibliographic data, they have produced evidence suggesting

that natural and social sciences can be differentiated along a hard-soft dimension.

Relative to softer sciences, hard sciences are organized around more unified body of core knowledge; their progress is informed by novel findings produced by shared methods and organized by more-or-less consensual ways of understanding the signif-icance of research findings To the extent that evolutionary psychology it is founded upon the “harder” science of biology, evolutionary psychology is able to build upon a more unified body of core concepts and methods While Zagaria et al (2020) acknowl-edge the limitations of evolutionary psychology, they write:

…evolutionary psychology’s global theoretical consistency (which cannot deter-mine its scientific success alone anyway) cannot be ignored…It is linked directly

to biology, through which it can be connected to the other “hard” sciences It is compatible with –and somewhat built on –neuro-cognitivism, and finally it is consistent with other psychological sub-disciplines (e.g developmental, social, personality and psychopathology) and with other disciplines and sciences, like anthropology

Further, they suggest that evolutionary psychology provides a framework for under-standing perennial psychological issues, such as the nature-nurture problem, the role of culture in human development, and the tendency for psychologists of different theo-retical orientations to organize their theories by referring to innate processes that are products of evolution They also suggest that while many have critiqued the presup-positions of evolutionary psychology, existing critiques tend to focus on narrow sense evolutionary psychology rather than broad sense evolutionary psychology, which exhibits both intellectual flexibility and pluralism

Zagaria et al (2020) contention that “evolutionary psychology may represent a compelling metatheory” (p 13) rests on several core principles:

What is fiercely debated concerns specific theories and methodologies: almost no-one would deny that we are animals biologically designed to survive and reproduce Most of the critics of evolutionary psychology recognize that its core principle is credible… However, “the contested nature of evolutionary psychol-ogy lies not in our status as evolved beings, but in the extent to which evolu-tionary ideas add value to studies of human behavior, and the rigor with which these ideas are tested” (Barrett et al.2014, p 1)

Can evolutionary psychology provide psychology with a compelling metatheory? Psychology must have its basis in strong biological and evolutionary theory However, this is not the same as saying that evolutionary psychology can provide a metatheory for psychology There are several reasons why this is the case First, it is true that most scholars would embrace the idea that humans are biological organisms whose survival

is dependent upon the processes of natural selection and reproduction.1However, while this statement may have psychological ramifications, it has no psychological content

To build upon this statement, there is a still a need to develop and invoke psychological concepts – principles that explain how adaptive activity is mediated by processes that extend beyond the biological This same point applies to the statement that the value of

an evolutionary approach lies in “the extent to which evolutionary ideas add value to studies of human behavior” (p 13) An evolutionary framework cannot provide a

metatheory simply by adding value; a psychological metatheory must provide a framework for understanding what it means to speak of psychological as opposed to, say, biological or cultural processes A psychological metatheory must provide a framework – however abstract – for understanding processes at the psychological level

of analysis

The second reason proceeds from the first Zagaria et al (2020) began their paper with the observation that there exists little consensus about the core meaning of psychological terms It is not clear how adopting evolutionary psychology as a metatheory would solve this problem To function as a metatheory, evolutionary psychology (or any other model) must either be able to provide a psychological lexicon, or otherwise function to clarify the meanings of psychological terms In the

absence of such a lexicon, it follows that any evolutionary psychology would be dependent upon a preexisting psychological science.2To the extent that evolutionary psychology relies upon psychological science for its psychological content, it cannot function as a metatheory for that science

A third objection concerns the status of evolutionary psychology itself To their credit, Zagaria et al (2020) acknowledge a long list of critiques of evolutionary psychology, including:

its testability, some of its fundamental cognitive assumptions like the massive modularity, the alleged inconsistency of the notion of EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptation), its potential methodological flaws (disjunction and grain problems), its alleged determinism, reductionism and the underestimation

of the environmental influences, as well as the so-called “natural teleology” and the “spandrel” problem…

All theoretical systems, scientific or otherwise, are organized by pre-theoretical and pre-empirical assumptions, beliefs and values Evolutionary psychology is no different

As described by Zagaria et al (2020), even in the context of theoretical pluralism, evolutionary psychology contains a meta-theoretical bias toward thinking of humans as

beings (a) who have an innate psychological core; (b) whose actions can be understood

1 Zagaria e t al (2020) acknowledge that while their articulations sometimes invoke teleological language, that they mean this language to be taken metaphorically In this regard, the statement “almost no-one would deny

that we are animals biologically designed to survive and reproduce” contains teleological language that many

would find objectionable It might be easier to agree with the reframing of the statement provided here.

2This is implicit, of course, in the use of the phrase evolutionary psychology That the adjective evolutionary modifies the noun psychology suggests a view that focuses on evolutionary aspects of psychological processes, or evolutionary perspectives on psychological processes In the former, the focus on evolution is but a part of the larger focus on psychology; in the latter, an evolutionary perspective must be able to give

coherence to the entire field of psychology – which includes clarification of core principles.

as traits that have been selected by evolution; (c) as individuals whose actions function

in the service of genetic imperatives; and related ideas Whether these points are

refutable is not at issue here; instead, the issue is the extent to which a model based

on contestable presuppositions can function as a broad metatheory While evolutionary psychology can be offered as but one perspective within a plurality of competing views,

in the absence of consensus about its paradigmatic assumptions, evolutionary psychol-ogy cannot function as a core psychological metatheory

Steps Toward a Unified Psychological Metatheory

Creating a unified metatheory for psychology is a daunting task The field of psychol-ogy comprises a suite of diverse paradigms and perspectives that carve the psycholog-ical world in different ways These frameworks contradict each other in many ways As

a result, a unified theory must be synthetic rather than eclectic (Bidell2020) Any hope

of creating a unified framework would require transformation of existing theoretical frameworks en route to integrating them to form a metatheory that has broad applica-tion Such a task would therefore require a willingness on the part of scholars to rethink core assumptions and values and find ways to reconcile competing frameworks I suggest that at minimum, a unified metatheory for psychology would have to address

three basic issues, including developing (a) a sharable psychological lexicon; (b) an integrative methodology and (c) a process model that describes how psychological

functioning operates both within and between multiply-nested (biological, psychological and socio-cultural) levels of organismic functioning

The Intersubjective Corroboration of Psychological Concepts

Zagaria et al (2020) have shown that there is little consensus and clarity in the field about foundational psychological concepts In introductory textbooks, psychology is typically defined in terms variations on the theme of “the science of mind and behavior”.3 This definition, however, is the result of a marriage of convenience Textbook authors are charged with the task of coordinating theoretical diversity The

reference to behavior in the definition allows inclusion of perspectives that emphasize

the capacity to make "objective" observations of that which is publically observable

References to mind or mental operations allow inclusion of the view that reference to

“observable” behavior is insufficient; that psychology deals with experience and other

“non-observable” processes that “lie behind” behavior The use of the conjunction

“and” in the definition (i.e., mind and behavior) juxtaposes these concepts without

speculating on the nature of their relation To say that psychology is a “science” allows readers to gloss over the noncommittal “and” and proceed with confidence that whatever “mind” is, it must be accessible through the scientific observation

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One might ask whether introductory texts – which are created in a desire to cover vast areas within the field – are the best place to seek comprehensive definitions of psychology How can one create a shared definition amidst the variety of different content areas? Psychological textbooks are intended merely to survey the field – not to characterize it as a whole Such a critique, however, would concede the point that Zagaria et al (2020) make The mere fact that authors of introductory textbooks must struggle to find a coherent unifying theme illustrates the problem at hand.

In this way, common definitions of psychology are founded upon a dualism: while

“behavior” is something accessible, “mental processes” are subjective and mysterious – measurable through their capacity to be tethered to operational definitions.4The focus

on that which is observable is what was meant to mark psychology as a science.

However, psychological processes are not observable in the same sense that physical and biological systems are Humans do not gain knowledge of psychological experi-ence by making inferexperi-ences about what lies behind inscrutable patterns of “overt behavior” Instead, the very possibility of constructing psychological knowledge

pre-supposes that humans have some capacity to engage the experiences of others In this way, psychological knowledge has its origins in intersubjective processes that occur between and among people (Mascolo2016,2017)

Intersubjectivity is the process of coordinating, sharing and mutually incorporating

experience between people (De Jaegher and Di Paolo2008; Matusov1996) Infants come into the world with a primordial capacity for intersubjectivity (Meltzoff2013, Trevarthen and Aitken2001) Infants do not engage their caregivers as if they were objects or inscrutable strangers Soon after birth, infants treat their caregivers as interactive agents (Bardi2017; Reddy2015) They adjust their emotional expressions

to the ongoing and anticipated actions of their caregivers (Fogel,1993) It is upon basic modes of intersubjective engagement that higher levels of socio-psychological under-standings are acquired (Rochat and Passos-Ferreira2009; Zahavi2006) Thus, psycho-logical knowledge develops neither through “objective observation” nor from “subjec-tive introspection” It develops as cultural agents use everyday psychological language –whose shared meanings already exist in the culture – to refer to experiences that arise between infant and caregiver in the process of intersubjective engagement (Bretherton and Beeghly1982; Mascolo2017; Verhagan2008)

From this perspective, psychological concepts do not gain their meaning through their correspondence to object-like processes that exist in an unmediated world (or in

the heads of either self or others) Psychological terms are words; they allow us parse

our joint experience in shared ways – that is, to make intersubjective experience intelligible to both self and other If this is so, then conceptual clarification in psychol-ogy cannot occur simply by making more precise recordings of observable

behavior Instead, to must occur through a process of intersubjective corroboration –

a process of coordinating and corroborating between people the ways in which we use

language represent, describe and express experience (Mascolo and Kallio2020) Any description of a person’s psychological processes always occurs against the

backdrop of an already existing psychological lexicon Any characterization of

a psychological state, either in the self or the other, is mediated by intersubjectively shared and contested systems of meanings (Husserl1970; Matsuev 2003) The first step

in conceptual clarification would involve reflecting on the (often tacit) ways in which

we typically use a given psychological term, comparing this meaning to other possible ways of using the term, and then explicitly settling upon the way we will define a given term in any particular theoretical and empirical work Second, we can then reflect upon how our use of psychological concepts structure our empirical studies, as well as the extent to which the results of our studies corroborate (or fail to corroborate) their meanings Third, we can compare how the results of our studies comport with results of

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Indeed, many formal definitions of psychological processes are themselves couched in operational terms.

other studies structured by similar concepts In this way, psychological meanings

become clarified not merely by making more careful descriptions of what we see, but

by assessing, coordinating and corroborating the shared ways in which we use partic-ular psychological (Mascolo and Kallio2020)

Toward an Integrative Psychological Methodology

A methodology is a conceptual framework that governs our approach to studying a given area of the world Methodology is not the same a method; a methodology is a set

of principles that guide the process of inquiry (Valsiner2020) It identifies what counts

as an appropriate research question; what counts as evidence; what methods can be used to test theoretical claims; and what qualifies as appropriate interpretations Psychological science has long struggled with issues of methodology Since its severing from philosophy, psychology has sought to define itself as an empirical science In so doing, it has largely accepted “objectivist” principles of scientific inquiry that have their origins in the natural sciences The goal has been to describe the observable world from

a theoretically-neutral third-person point of view This goal has created a suite of internal contradictions in psychological methodology Psychological events do not exist as “observable entities” in the same way that molecules, cells and bodies do If

we did not already have the capacity to experience anger for ourselves – if we were not already able understand the shared meaning of words like “anger”, “desire” or “goal” –

we would never be able to recognize or identify these experiences in either ourselves or

in others In this way, the capacity for shared understanding – intersubjectivity – precedes both our “first-person” reflections personal experience as well the “third person” identification of psychological states in others What we sometimes call

“subjectivity” and “objectivity” are both made possible by the more primary process

of intersubjectivity

What are the implications of this idea for psychological methodology? Does the primacy of intersubjectivity mean that third-person (i.e., “objective”) and first-person (i.e., “subjective”) methods have no place in psychological inquiry? On the contrary: from an intersubjective point of view, there is an important place for first- and third-person methods However, within this view, the terms “subjective” and “objective”

begin to lose their conventional meanings Objective observations cease to be neutral descriptions of the way the world really is; instead, they become accountings that are

available to all of us, rather than just to me or to you Subjective reports cease to be

descriptions of private states to which only I can have access; instead, they become socially mediated reflections on personal experiences – expressions that are made

possible through our capacity use words to represent and communicate shared and contested meanings (e.g., the word “anger”) An integrative psychological methodol-ogy would be one that acknowledges rather than marginalizes the fundamentally intersubjective (i.e., “shared” or “second-person”) origins of psychological knowledge

It would be one that embraces the utility of first- and third-person forms of inquiry – but while acknowledging the need to be reflexive about how such forms of inquiry are structured by meanings that have their origins in past and present forms of intersub-jective engagement between persons

A Relational Conception of Psychological Functioning

Having articulated tools for identifying and studying key psychological processes, a unified metatheory should be able to specify a general process model of psychological functioning Such a model should provide a framework that is broadly applicable to the study of any psychological issue or problem In what follows, in broad strokes, I outline

what might be called a relational systems model of psychological development that

provides an example of how this might be done This model seeks to build upon what is shared among systems-related approaches to psychology, including epigenetic (Gottlieb and Lickliter 2007), dynamic systems theory (Granic 2008; Thelen and Smith 2006; Van Geert 2020), dynamic skill theory (Fischer et al 1993; Mascolo and Fischer2015), relational-developmental theory (Lerner and Lerner2019; Overton

2014), enactivism (De Jaegher and Di Paolo2008), and a suite of related approaches (Henriques2011; Mascolo and Bidell2020; Uher2016; Valsiner1998)

With a relational systems model, psychological functioning operates as a

self-organizing person-environment system Any psychological outcome is an

emer-gent product of coactions that occur both within and between levels of a multiply-nested person-environment system (Gottlieb 1991) As shown in Fig 1, it is helpful to think of person-environment interactions as organized within multi-nested biogenetic, psychological, social-relational and cultural-linguistic systems

At the bio-genetic level of functioning, organisms operate as living systems that regulate internal processes to adapt to environmental circumstances

Psycholog-ical processes are forms of biologPsycholog-ical processes As emergent products of com-plexly structured biological systems, they show emergent properties that cannot be reduced to the properties of their base elements (Mascolo and Kallio 2019; Stephan 2004) As an emergent form of biological activity, a psychological

process is any adaptive process that is mediated by meaning or experience

(Mascolo et al.2014) From this view, it follows that although all psychological processes are biological processes, not all biological processes are psychological processes (Mascolo and Kallio, 2019) The analysis of psychological processes

requires its own vocabulary – including such terms as consciousness, attention, emotion, meaning, experience, and so forth.

All psychological processes operate within broader systems of social relations The

social-relational level of functioning consists of interactions that occur between at least

two people In face-to-face social interaction, social partners continuously adjust their actions, thoughts and feelings to the ongoing and anticipated actions of their social

Fig 1 Multi-Nested Epigenetic Systems Note Adapted from Gottlieb, 1991; Gottlieb and Lickliter, 2007