Jerome Bruner declared that psychology has maintained "a stubborn antiphilosophical stance that kept it isolated from currents of thought in its neighboring disciplines in the human sciences. Rather than finding common cause with our neighbors in defining such central ideas as ‘mind’ or ‘Self,’ we in psychology preferred to rely upon standardized research paradigms to ‘define’ our ‘own’ concepts." What are some costs and benefits of being more interdisciplinary?
I think, in some occassions there is a segmentation even within psychological paradigms for instance a cognitive approach versus a humanist one. The isolation is prevalent as can be seen in many occasions. Yet there can be good examples like Keyes's Social Well-being theory which is based on both psychological theories and classical sociological theory, by referring to concepts like anomie, class consciousness. I think it is very necessary to engage in interdisciplinary work, yet it may require expertise in various areas. Although it is hard to conduct interdisciplinary work, it can be possible through teams from various disciplines.
Well, as any other discipline - multi-disciplinary is important even to psychology... well, management and leadership literature now is looking at spirituality! who thought so few years back!
A barrier on multi-disciplinary work in psychology, I guess, is the multiplication of knowledge in related areas, which distract researchers and thinkers' attentions. Another is I think, many universities and scientific organizations value and support (i.e. as grants, promotion criteria) in-depth analysis on specific topics, and researchers seem to refrain from seeming unscientific or inconsistent when they refer to constructs and concepts from other disciplines. Nobody wants to be "heretics" who "contaminate" the area. I think there is also an effect of immature and pseudo-scientific approaches that had poor methodology and organization, on this stigma.
Not the ones you mentioned. Nobody would like to eat spaghetti everyday.
Different disciplines have their own particular way of looking at a certain phenomenon, for examples suicide, as per Durkheim, is caused by how a person is integrated into society whereas a psychologist would most probably say that individuals are unique and different people have different reasons for taking such drastic measures. When studying such a phenomenon nowadays, one HAS to be interdisciplinary. But should also be able to identify which approach is related to which discipline. Mixing them up can be quite confusing and a daunting task, if undertaken. All these disciplines are unique and psychology does answer certain questions the others just theorize upon. So in certain cases, having an interdisciplinary approach and inputs is not always wise.
But certain sub-fields of psychology, for example Environmental psychology IS interdisciplinary, so one cannot conclude by saying that currently all of psychology is completely isolated from other disciplines.
Any branch of science the moment it becomes interdisciplinary it quality would go down
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