What other than "we stand on the shoulders of giants", and we look to find statistical significance, demonstrates actually knowing and taking responsibility for limitations? As you "stand on the shoulders", you must take responsibility for all you understand and use and do -- every bit. You have to find and truly justify all as right OR seek to correct it (engage in true existentialism); then specify and make explicit what the limitations are and how you take them into account. (It would be best if your answer stands congruent with the strongest, relevant, and most basic principles and clearly recognizes the best-established relevant findings in psychology thus far, whether explicitly related to your model or theory or not -- personally putting them into your proper perspective.)
I have provided my answer in https://www.researchgate.net/post/Re_Theory_or_models_Why_is_there_no_concern_about_thinking_about_too_much
I am looking for OTHER ANSWERS (or do you not consider this important?)
Academics thrives on originality. Yet, there is no monopoly of knowledge. It is true to say that "we stand on the shoulders of giants". Any contribution we make is on the basis of earlier contributions of others, not necessarily completely novel. Originality is the ability to express our contributions without stealing from others, that is, without using the ideas of others with due acknowledgement. A psychologist like any other human being has his own behavioural flaws and limitations. That should not limit his research on psychological problems of others. Just as no medical doctor is expected or allowed to treat his ailments, a psychologist should not focus on his personal limitations nor allow them to distract his pursuit of knowledge.
Dear Brad:
I have to confess that I experienced some difficulty while trying to understand your main question (How do psychologists effectively take into consideration their own limitations as they begin their study of behavior?) and your subsequent considerations.
As you say that "we stand on the shoulders of giants" what follows are my first thoughts on how often psychologists do not do that. Thus, I am in agreement with Zeaman' s (1959, p. 167) astute remark that “while in the natural sciences, each generation stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before [the giants], in the social sciences [and namely in psychology], each generation steps in the face of its predecessors”. As a result, psychology seems doomed to ignoring central dimensions to understand a given phenomenon and being relatively incapable of accumulating a body of knowledge, and hence to set the stage for the appearance of hasty conclusions, disembodied concepts, ungrounded words, and dispensable (mini)theories. As Ette rightly says academics thrives on originality. This is well understandable because originality is highly rewarded either intrinsically or extrinsically.
However, I would say that in psychology it is often the case that what is called originality is either ignorance of previous accumulated knowledge or the posting of, say, artificial than a natural fractures or a better theories. In terms of number of theories, psychology would probably be the queen of sciences, what is not the case. More than in other field, theories in psychology never really die; they just go in and out of fashion. Because of this, it is often the case that psychologists (I am a developmental psychologist) effectively do take into consideration their own limitations as they begin to study a certain issue, for example, cognitive or moral development. Note that Wittgenstein, in his famous Philosophical Investigations (p.232e), cogently remarked that in psychology there is experimental methods but conceptual confusion. This partly explains what the neo-Popperian P. Meehl, in a seminal article published in 1978 in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology called the slow progress of soft psychology.
In a nutshell, it is yet to come the time for psychologists in general, to take into account their limitations, for example, when putting forth a so called new theory.
Best regards, Orlando
Dear Orlando M Lourenço
My point was for those attempting to follow in the path of one of the major existing theories. It was to say that there are still extremely notable problems there, because of how the theories were formulated and those who follow one should come to see the problems and find ways to correct things. That was my point. (My critiques of the major existing theories can be found in "A Human Ethogram ..." in the "Human Ethology and Development" Project -- you can see there of what a grievous nature I see the problems to be. Some of the main problems, interestingly, are all of the same type: using conclusions or pre-conclusions as assumptions -- something I call "pseudo-assumptionism". This is something as wrongful as it sounds, yet in the nature of some core assumptions of the classic, and still existing, major theories. There are other problems like using unrelated models and reasoning by analogy and a short-term observation/study bias.) I should probably just have been more explicit about where I was "coming from" in trying to make the point (and have just said, in addition, what I now said here).)
Your point seems separate (but perhaps related). It is also a very good point but seems to be another major issue.
Article A Human Ethogram: Its Scientific Acceptability and Importanc...
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