Maarten Derksen

Against integration - Why evolution cannot unify the social sciences

A lack of integration is often identified as a fundamental problem in psychology and the social sciences. It is thought that only through increased cooperation among the various disciplines and sub-disciplines, and integration of their different theoretical approaches, can psychology and the social sciences make real progress. An increasing number of psychologists have recently been proposing that the theory of evolution must be accepted as the foundation of all the sciences that deal with human beings, including their behaviour and culture. I argue, however, that the ideal of integration is based on a mistaken idea of natural science as a seamless whole. Moreover, the close connection between language and mind entails the need for a different approach to behaviour and culture than the one offered by evolutionary psychology. Rather than to seek integration, psychology and the social sciences need to make the existing pluralism more productive. I argue that the concept of boundaries offers a good starting-point for reflecting on disciplinary diversity.

Are we not experimenting then?: The rhetorical demarcation of psychology and common sense

Scientific disciplines need both autonomy and alliances with other cultural groups. In order to achieve these twin goals, scientists have to engage in boundary rhetoric and popularize the demarcation of their discipline. In the case of psychology in particular such rhetoric involves a paradoxical role for common sense as rhetorical commonplace, counterpart of psychology and object of study. The boundary rhetoric of two leading figures from the history of Dutch psychology, Gerard Heymans and Johannes Linschoten, is analysed with particular attention to common sense. The implications of a rhetorical perspective for the current debates around folk psychology and lay judgement and inference are discussed.

Realism, Relativism, and Evolutionary Psychology

Against recent attempts to forge a reconciliation between constructionism and realism, I contend that, in psychology at least, stirring up conflict is a more fruitful strategy. To illustrate this thesis, I confront a school of psychology with strong realist leanings, evolutionary psychology, with the relativist critique of realism proposed by Edwards, Ashmore, and Potter. I show that evolutionary psychology employs the kind of “bottomline arguments” that they identify as typical of realist rhetoric. However, it also proposes a modified realism based on a concept of mediation, which accommodates a moderate social constructionism. I argue that there are good reasons to reject such a settlement between realism and constructionism. The theories of emergence that have been developed both in biology and in science and technology studies cast doubt on the view of the brain as a fully specifiable mediator.

Control and resistance in the psychology of lying

Psychology’s obsession with control, with manipulating the experimental situation and the behavior of participants, has often been criticized. Mainstream, experimental psychology, it is said, abuses its power in the laboratory to artificially create docile participants who fit its experimental regime. I argue that this criticism accords too much control to the experimenter. Using the psychology of lying and lie detection as an example, I show that the psychologist does not exert full control in the laboratory, but meets resistance. In the psychological laboratory, lying and lie detection are constructed on a technological model in which both the psychologist and the liar are operators of devices, locked in battle. The critical focus, I conclude, should be on the technologies and counter-technologies at work on the laboratory, and on the limitations of this model.

Discipline, subjectivity and personality: an analysis of the manuals of four psychological tests.

The administration of psychological tests is highly regulated. Test manuals prescribe the instructions to the test subject, the time the test should take, where it should take place, whether and how the test administrator should answer questions from the test subject, and other aspects of the testing situation. Through the manual, the behaviour of test administrator and test subject is disciplined so that the subject may become measurable. The manuals of four tests are analysed, and the disciplinary mechanisms that operate in the administration of these tests are described. Attention is then given to the question whether the discipline of the test is repressive or productive. It is concluded that test manuals, while being central to the production of a psychological subject, also articulate an excess subjectivity in the measures they prescribe to exclude it from the testing situation.

Social Technologies: Cross-Disciplinary Reflections on Technologies in and from the Social Sciences.

In this introduction, we explore the relevance to critical psychology of the ideas about technology that have come from science and technology studies (STS), which we argue allow a new look at a classic theme in critical approaches in psychology. Rather than seeing psychical and social reality as objective realities, critical psychologists have approached them as the products of historically situated practices, intimately tied up with the circumstances of their production. We suggest that this metaphor of production can be developed in new ways by investigating tools, methods, and phenomena within psychology through the optic of STS. At the same time, STS may also gain from turning to psychology, since it has predominantly focused on the natural sciences and may be inspired to adjust its analytical approach to people and technology through this encounter. We position the notion of social technology both in relation to assumed distinctions between the natural and the social world and in relation to critiques of these assumptions. With the concept of social technology, we argue for investigating the instruments of psychology and social science with equal attention to the way so-called “technical” and “human” elements work together, and sometimes fail, to constitute particular effects.

The brain as an instrument: comment on Gergen’s “The acculturated brain”

In “The acculturated brain,” his critical analysis of the current brain hype, Kenneth Gergen concludes that we should consider the brain primarily as an instrument for achieving culturally constructed ends, and challenge the determining power of the brain with the question “Could I do otherwise?” In my reply, I point out that the pressing issue is usually “How could I do otherwise?,” not sorting out determined behavior from culturally constructed action. The challenge is to understand the increasing traffic between brain and culture, rather than to keep mechanism and meaning separate. Secondly, the notion of the brain as an instrument needs to be developed in the light of technology studies, in order to avoid both neuro-reductionism and the instrumentalism implied in Gergen’s proposal.

Ecologies of Deception in Psychology and Rhetoric

This article explores deception through the lenses of rhetorical theory and experimental social psychology, thus performing an important interdisciplinary gesture. It argues that deception is emergent in experimental conditions as it likewise is in rhetorical encounters. In so doing, it builds toward an understanding of human agency outside the bounds of the subject/object split. Examining work on rhetorical ecologies and ambience on the one hand, and experimental social psychology on the other, the article argues that deception is not something that one person does to another, but rather is an emergent phenomenon within moments of encounter, whether they be rhetorical interactions or psychological experiments.

The history of 'Social Technology', 1898-1930

Since the term was first coined, in the late nineteenth century, ‘social technology’ has had a mixed fate. Whereas ‘technology’ has become one of the keywords of the twentieth century, ‘social technology’ never quite seemed to settle in the vocabulary of social theory. In this article, we focus on the early history of ‘social technology’, tracing its spread from its origin in the sociology department at the University of Chicago, and describing the increasing competition from the term ‘social engineering’ starting in the 1920s. We argue that this shift in terminology is significant, because it is an index of changing ideas about the demarcation of sociology, about the application of science in the betterment of society and about the nature of technology.

Anti Anti-dualism A Reply to Goertzen

In contrast to Goertzen, I do not think that the fragmentation of psychology and the social sciences is a problem that requires a principled solution. When researchers find opportunities to collaborate, they should be supported, but there is no compelling reason to adopt one overall model of integration. The philosophical issue usually put forward as the root cause of fragmentation—Cartesian dualism—is a red herring: a pragmatic pluralism of approaches in psychology is quite compatible with a logical (as opposed to an ontological) reading of dualism. I therefore repeat my original call for a critical engagement with evolutionary psychology.