Hi Louise,

A very nice thought. I believe senior people should give us some advices on this issue. Personally, I just do what I like, collaborate with people who are nice to me. 

Phu

Hello Louise,

Your question has to do with how we define your research worldview and how does it influence your research choices.

Let me starting by saying that in 1942 Stephan Peeper spoke about four paradigms or world views in Science (i.e., Formism, Mechanism, Contextualism, and Organicism), in his famous book titled World Hypotheses: A study of evidence. Los Angeles: University of California Press).

Each paradigm appeals to a specific root metaphor. The root metaphor of mechanism is the machine. The root metaphor of formism is similarity. The root metaphor of contextualism is the ongoing act in context. And the root metaphor of organicism is the process of organic development, as in living, growing, organic systems. Mechanism and formism are analytic: The whole is reducible to its parts. The parts are basic, the whole derived. Organicism and contextualism are synthetic: The whole is basic, the parts derived. Formism and contextualism are dispersive: Facts are related when they are found to be so, not by assumption. Chance, therefore, is not denied in these hypotheses. Mechanism and organicism are integrative: Facts are related by assumption and order is categorical. As such, chance is denied. Dispersive world views or hypotheses tend to be higher in scope than in precision; integrative world hypotheses tend to be higher in precision than in scope. Skinner's theory of learning is an example of a mechanistic approach. Piaget's theory of development is an organismic approach. Life-span developmental psychology (see Baltes, 1987) and Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological approach to human development are only two examples of  a contextualist view of the world. Fodor's  (1983) theory of the modularity of mind is just an example of a formistic paradigm or worldview.

I think that you can learn a lot with respect to your question from reading that classical book. You can also benefit from reading a chapter (chapter 1) by Willis Overton, published in 1998, in the Handbook of child psychology. New York: John Wiley.

When conducting research, my favorite worldview is organicism.  Fomistic worldview's main idea is that there is no development whatever because one's feeling, thinking and acting are, as it were, prewired in the brain and  mind.

Of course, biological maturation, neural maturation in particular, underlies one's mental functioning, be it emotional, cognitive, moral and the like. Maturation, however, simply opens up a series of possibilities, but without giving rise to their actualization. Context plays a role in this actualization. Context, however, is not passively received on the part of the individual as if s/he was a mere machine that receives inputs from outside and generates, almost automatically, outputs.

As Piaget pointed out physical and social experience is only significant when it is acted upon, that is, actively assimilated by the individual. Organicism takes into account the role of maturation and the physical and social milieu in one's development and education, but, in contrast to the other worldviews, stresses the role of one's actions upon the objects and one's interactions with the others in one's process of development and education. It is because I argue for an organistic and constructivist worldview that most of my empirical research and theoretical thinking is, so to say, Piagetian- and Kohlbergian- oriented.

In your question you speak about social constructivist. To my understanding, there is social constructionism a la K. Gergen, for instance, not social constructivism. In other words, contrary to the postmodern constructionist claim that all knowledge and value is socially constructed,  a constructivist account, like that of Piaget and Kohlberg, assumes that individuals all construct essentially the same understanding of knowledge and value as a result of their interactions with the physical and social worlds.

When doing research, we also assume, implicitly  or explicitly, a certain meta world-view or metatheory. As I see it, a certain metatheory is implicated , for example, in our goal to conduct research. I assume that all researchers look for the unknown, that is, for a better understanding of the true, the good, and  the beautiful. Note that the  true, the good, and the beautiful are universal  categories, regardless of  how they are  understood at different places and times.

I  am available to collaborate with any individual interested in looking for the unknown. The questions I want to tackle are those that once C. S. Pierce called "irritating" questions, that is, questions whose response leads us to a better understanding of the true, the good, and the beautiful. This understanding, I believe, is a sine qua non condition of the betterment of mankind or humanity. Of course, research and education are costly, but they are far less costly than ignorance.

During my scientific and  academic career I have tried  to maintain my favorite world view -- organism and  constructivism,  not  constructionism --  but l am always prone to learn from other theoretical frameworks and from other researchers, be they junior or senior researchers.

I hope that I have  got your question and that this helps.

Best regards.

I like the idea of "irritating questions" that Orlando quoted. I think that I follow it: I specify the problematic zone and ask, what can be done about it, how we can better the situation. And also to find the truth is the motivation, surely, to understand, what is the real situation. 

Hi Louise, Intriguing question. For me it is a simple answer, though. My first year professor suggested we find a problem in the world and build a body of work and research to solve the problem. In the case of my career, 40% employee engagement is the problem I am trying to solve by enabling people to fulfill employee engagement drives, through proactive networking.

Hi Kelly. Wonderful question that has set my mind in motion. Have to research n and get back to you with something logical and scholarly.