Gavin Brent Sullivan

Response to Comment on "Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science"

Gilbert et al. conclude that evidence from the Open Science Collaboration’s Reproducibility Project: Psychology indicates high reproducibility, given the study methodology. Their very optimistic assessment is limited by statistical misconceptions and by causal inferences from selectively interpreted, correlational data. Using the Reproducibility Project: Psychology data, both optimistic and pessimistic conclusions about reproducibility are possible, and neither are yet warranted.

Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and “pictures” of mixed-method research in psychology: A critical investigation of theories and accounts of methodological plurality

Wittgenstein’s philosophical method and later writings help psychologists to identify and work through “pictures” evoked and used in our linguistic practices especially when these representations appear to be self-evident and they promote fundamental misconceptions. This article applies Wittgenstein’s later philosophy to theories and accounts of combinations of quantitative and qualitative methods in psychology, many of which have now been extended to mixtures of qualitative methods with contrasting theoretical assumptions. In contrast to pragmatist, realist, and social constructionist stances, a Wittgensteinian approach examines metatheoretical and metamethodological pictures of methodological plurality in a treatment of issues that are traditionally explored in terms of epistemological, ontological, interpretative, and paradigm differences. Arguments that Wittgenstein’s work can strengthen existing forms of personal, methodological, and deconstructive reflexivity in psychological research practices are exemplified with a specific example of combining psychosocial and discursive qualitative methods.

Introduction: The Emotional Dynamics of Backlash Politics beyond Anger, Hate, Fear, Pride, and Loss

The activists from March for England, a group that had worked closely, although not always seen eye to eye, with the English Defence League, for some years the UK’s most prominent anti-Muslim protest movement, gathered outside Brighton station. It was an excellent day for a St. George’s day parade: warm spring sunshine, just a light breeze. The activists, many wearing, wrapped in or carrying England flags, greeted one another, and shared a joke and a drink as their talk turned to the day ahead. The marchers enacted and expressed a range of emotions. There was evident excitement and anxiety as they discussed parade logistics. They expected a degree of opposition from anti-fascist groups: There always was in Brighton. For some, this was part of the attraction. Yet March for England had only managed to muster a small group today—150 or so—including a number of families and some marchers with limited mobility. There were also, as might be expected, expressions of national pride, felt most intensely during lustily sung renditions of “God Save the Queen” and “England ‘til I die.” National pride mixed with personal pride, appreciation of and respect for their fellow marchers: for being the people who had made the effort to be there and were willing to march despite the anticipated opposition. These feelings were however infused with and accentuated through other emotions and affects of loss, disappointment, embarrassment, and shame even, that in England today so few

Collective Emotions: A Case Study of South African Pride, Euphoria and Unity in the Context of the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Collective emotions experienced as existing objectively and widely shared challenge traditional views of emotions based on personal or private interests. This paper extends theories of group and crowd emotions focusing on social appraisal, social identity, emotional contagion, and ecstatic nationalism, and adds an interdisciplinary approach to research on international mega-sporting event impacts and legacies by examining the national-level collective emotions produced by a mega-sport event—the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The novel case study approach triangulates ethnographic observations of life in downtown Johannesburg before and during the World Cup with a critical thematic analysis of qualitative interviews of 10 South Africans and the author’s and publicly posted videorecordings of individual and collective behavior. I explore how citizen support for efforts to pursue national projects combined with international attention to generate widespread and genuinely coordinated collective emotions of euphoria and pride. The social ontology-based analysis considers bottom–up and top–down mechanisms of emotional spread and influence along with important expressive-performative contributions of culture-specific forms of group-based and collective action tendencies. Moreover, the study shows how group agency in the form of coordinated ritualistic bases realized group affects spontaneously and normatively as South Africans desired, accepted and celebrated achieving team and host-related group goals. These results provide new insights into the emotions that occur in public events in two phases, (1) creation of collective normative commitment in practice related to group ethos and national interests and goals prior to the tournament start, and (2) during the tournament when dynamic relations between group-based and collective emotions also generated feelings of unity and solidarity. Together they highlight unique predisposing cultural and historical features of the emotional and affective-discursive practices associated with the World Cup for South Africans, limits to the spread of emotions of enthusiasm from urban cities to rural areas, forms of excitement and celebration in public spaces, instances of ambivalence about efforts to enact support for the nation’s World Cup team and host role, and indicate how collective emotional experiences are internalized, embodied and reproduced in accounts of national transformation, concerns about fragile intergroup solidarity, and instances of group-based hubristic pride.

Wittgenstein’s Influence and Impact in Areas of Psychology

Wittgensteinian positions that work through social and psychological theories in combination with conceptual or grammatical investigations are outlined in Chap. 3. Illustrating Wittgensteinian influence on and relevance to an interdisciplinary psychology begins with a focus collective phenomena including differences between collectives and contemporary research on collective emotions. The importance of surroundings and context for social psychology are detailed through exploration of creativity, madness, meaning and rule-breaking. The details and significance of the so-called Private Language Argument are highlighted in a section on cognitive and individual phenomena, including examples of theoretical and empirical work on memory and emotions. The last section examines Wittgenstein’s impact on developmental psychology to critique theory of mind approaches and explore complex and atypical late and early developing skills, abilities and experiences.

A Wittgensteinian Stance on Psychological Methods, Objectivity, Ontology and Explanations

This chapter examines the limits and consequences of attempts to incorporate Wittgenstein’s philosophical remarks and methods within psychology. Wittgensteinian criticisms of positivist and realist accounts of objectivity and pictures of psychological researchers as “independent” and “distant” are outlined, before conceptual problems with social constructionism and intelligibility as a critical criterion in psychology are “worked through”. The ontological allure of realism is engaged with and a case is made for conceiving of Wittgenstein’s later work as a framework that can make sense of demands in psychology to investigate hidden “levels” of processes and structures. Further sections highlight the “background” and contexts of social and psychological investigations, make sense of theories as enduring sources of insights and change, and clarify challenges to causal thinking in psychology.

The Relevance of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy to Psychology

The nature of the relevance and relation of Wittgenstein’s philosophy to psychology is examined in this chapter starting with general issues surrounding the relations between philosophy and science, and highlighting misleading pictures and comparisons identified by Wittgenstein in relation to psychology’s supposed status, unlike physics, as a “young science”. A Wittgensteinian perspective is developed about pernicious and positive forms of reflexivity, respectively, arguing that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is not postmodern or self-referentially inconsistent and showing that psychology can be fruitfully compared with mathematics. The game analogy of psychology is used to avoid the problems of constructing metatheories about social and psychological science, clarify the role of theoretical psychology, and outline the importance of achieving a surview of the grammar of psychological and metapsychological concepts.

Concluding Remarks: Wittgensteinian Philosophy and the Future of Psychology

The book’s themes are brought back together to reiterate that Wittgenstein’s relevance to psychology can not only be talked about in the discipline’s recent history but also is shown in many areas of theoretical, empirical and applied work. Wittgenstein’s influence is argued to be important but cannot be incorporated in a straightforward manner as a critical method or theory creation tool, although it does provide a reflexive and critical resource for social and psychological scientists. While the types of conceptual problems Wittgenstein identifies need to be worked through by each psychologist as they encounter them, the successful identification of misleading pictures and theories in the practices of psychology is distributed in a community in such a way that we can benefit from achieving conceptual clarity. Engaging with the work of a philosopher like Wittgenstein also introduces the need to anticipate and imagine the future of social and psychological science and global society. (e.g., as diverse as counselling interventions and political movements).

Toward a thoroughly cultural and discursive moral analysis of prejudice, discrimination, and racism.

Copyright