The False Lure of Objectivity in Psychology

Source: depositphotos/konstantynov

Science is typically understood as a method for producing reliable knowledge by testing falsifiable claims against objective evidence. An objective observation is typically understood as one that is (a) based upon publicly observable phenomena (i.e., overt behavior); (b) unbiased, in the sense that it records only what is observed, without adding or taking away from the observation, and (c) provides an accurate representation how the world as it truly is.

In the traditional model of science, observation is key: If we want to learn about some natural phenomenon, we observe it. If we want to test a hypothesis, we need to test it against clearly identified observations. In the natural sciences, it may be technically difficult to find the right tools to measure something, but observation is nonetheless key.

Things are different in psychology and in other social sciences. We cannot do psychology simply by applying principles from the natural sciences. The difference is not merely technical. The way that we gain psychological knowledge is fundamentally different from the ways in which we gain knowledge about the physical world.

This is because humans are not objects. We cannot and do not understand human experience and action simply by recording what we observe publicly. We cannot even begin to make a psychological observation unless we already have some preexisting knowledge about what we are observing. Psychological knowledge is simply not the kind of knowledge that one can derive simply be looking at bodily movements. It is possible only to the extent that we are able to achieve some degree of intersubjectivity – shared experience – with other persons.

Let’s take a very simple example.

How would you describe this man's behavior objectively?

Yes, it's difficult. As a first approximation, we could say, "The man is clapping his hands."

But is this an objective observation? Does it record only what is observed in an unbiased way? The statement the man clapped his hands seems quite innocuous. However, there is a great deal of meaning in this simple phrase. What does it mean, for example, to say that the man clapped? To make this statement is to attribute some form or degree of agency to the man. The predicate “clapped” implies an active agent who has the power to initiate a series of meaningful movements. We say that the power to “clap one's hands” arises from within the agent.

However, we do not observe the man's agency. The concept of “agency” – the idea that “persons” are able to “initiate their own movements” and that such “capacities” originate from “within the person” are not processes that are observable. Instead, these ideas are part of the preunderstandings that we bring to any “observation” that we make of a psychological act. They are part of the intersubjective conceptual backdrop that we develop as a product of being human beings who relate to other human beings within cultures. In any "observation," we necessarily draw on these preunderstandings to structure what we see.

What would it mean to describe the man's behavior “objectively”? Again, let’s focus just on the clapping of his hands. To even begin to describe the “chapping” objectively, we would need to represent the man's hands in a three dimensional space and trace trajectory of the movements of his hands back and forth through that space.

This, of course, would record the movements of the hands, but we would learn nothing about these movements as aspects of the psychological act of clapping one's hands. A psychological act is a meaning-mediated process. Without engaging in the meaning of the movement, we are unable to describe the act as clapping. The objective observation reduces to a series of movements in space.

So, depending upon the purposes of the observer, the statement, “the man clapped his hands” is appropriate, meaningful and useful as a description of a psychological act. In this way, the description can be useful without being "objective" -- at least in the sense described above. In fact, to describe it "objectively" would strip it of its psychological utility.

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Thus, we do not and cannot make observations of psychological processes in the same way that we make observations of objects. In seeking to track the earth’s trajectory, we examine aspects of its movements – its direction, speed, distance from the sun, and so forth. However, we cannot and do not observe psychological processes in this way.

Instead, psychological knowledge is made possible by our capacity for intersubjectivity or shared experience with others. When we look at a human face, we don’t see a meaningless configuration of muscle movements – we see joy, anguish or fear. We don’t see the mere movement of the head – we see someone turn her head toward someone. We don’t see the trajectory of a wound up ball of fingers moving toward our face – we see something throwing a punch.

The only reason we are able to make any psychological “observations” at all is because we already have the capacity for intersubjectivity with each other. Without it, we would all be autistic. Each of us would be an inscrutable objects to the other – each trying to figure out why the moist object across the way moves in the way it does.

If this is true, then the primary way in which we gain psychological knowledge is not through “objective observation,” but instead through intersubjective engagement. To be sure, trying to be precise in describing what other people say, do and experience is an important thing to do. Indeed, the famous anthropologist Gregory Bateson defined objectivity as “looking very carefully at what we choose to look at.” However, as psychological scientists, we tend to hide the intersubjective origins of psychological knowledge in the closet. If someone were to find out how much we relied upon it, we might be exposed as unscientific.

However, the opposite is more nearly true. A psychology that fails to acknowledge and build upon its intersubjective foundations is behaving scientistically – not scientifically. We can do better.