Abstract
Psychologists congratulate themselves in telling their discipline’s history as a linear progression to its present state, as if psychology was purely rational and free from all historical contingency. In so doing we close ourselves to past ideas that were unjustly left behind and which can make a significant contribution to psychology today. The word ‘experiment’, for example, has taken on a very narrow meaning in contemporary psychology. We are told that for something to be an experiment there must be an independent and dependent variable, a large random sample of participants, and a statistical analysis of scores. These requirements were foreign to psychology in the first half of this last century and only became social norms through influences outside of psychology, such as the military and education (Danziger, 1990).
(T)he search for method becomes one of the most important problems of the entire enterprise of understanding the uniquely human forms of psychological activity. In this case, the method is simultaneously prerequisite and product, the tool and the result of the study.
Vygotsky (1987, p. 27)
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Notes
- 1.
One could also call this approach an “Einsteinian” experimental methodology (see Holton, 1988).
- 2.
- 3.
I chose these three because they are classic studies in the microgenetic tradition which are different enough to allow for broad comparisons. Additionally, Vygotsky and Bartlett’s experiments are milestones in the socio-cultural study of remembering, while Werner’s helps us to conceptualize the process by which we struggle to articulate a memory that we are feeling but cannot yet precisely describe (i.e. the ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ phenomenon).
- 4.
Vygotsky also refers to his method as the “experimental genetic method,” “instrumental method” and “historical-genetic method” (Engeström, 2007).
- 5.
Not everything on the inter-mental plan is internalized, only that for which there is dramatic conflict, i.e. a problem that creates inner tension. Similarly, when the child later encounters a problem intra-mentally he or she will utilize means borrowed from an inter-mental drama to overcome it (see Veresov, 2008).
- 6.
Bartlett, as well as Werner and Vygotsky, clearly believed in “the unity of mentality” (Edwards & Middleton, 1987): Any demarcation between the mind’s processes will be arbitrary because the mind is a systemically functioning totality.
- 7.
See van der Veer and Valsiner (1991).
- 8.
- 9.
See Diriwätcher (this volume) for the Würzburger’s influence on the second Leipzig school.
- 10.
It should be noted that Bartlett’s own concept of ‘attitude’ is extremely close to the Würzburger’s early concept of Bewusstseinslage, literally “position of consciousness”. It was first mistranslated by Titchener (1909) as “attitude” and later by Boring (1950) as ‘conscious attitude’ (see Danziger, 1997, Chapter 8). Kusch’s (1999) recent translation as ‘situation of consciousness’ comes closer to the original though perhaps misses its directed character. The concept encompassed a whole range of phenomena from feelings of surprise, excitement and familiarity to expectation, coercion, contrast and agreement (see Larsen & Bernsten, 2000, for comparison with Bartlett).
- 11.
Edwards and Middleton (1987) point out that Bartlett conversed with his participants during his experiments and used this data to interpret their reproductions. This, however, is not “systematic” access to their moment-to-moment remembering.
- 12.
The role of interpretation was not even eliminated in Wundt’s strict experimental setup. For example, concerning the two-point threshold, Binet (1903) showed participant’s interpretation of “two-points” differed depending on their interpretation of the task. Some participants interpreted “two-points” from a broader heavier single point or a bell shaped point. In short, describing in more detail the qualitative character of the sensation changed the results of Wundt’s experiment (Danziger, 1990).
- 13.
For another example of this ‘think-aloud’ research strategy see Diriwächter, this volume.
- 14.
For a general outline of this contrast see Toomela (2007 and in this book).
- 15.
- 16.
These results have been recently reproduced with minor modifications (Meshcheryakov, 2008).
- 17.
Bartlett’s third major concept is attitude which has already been mentioned in connection with the Würzburgers in Section 3.1.
- 18.
Single case analysis allows one to explore functioning on particular tasks in light of more general functioning. A participant’s history can be used in the analysis.
- 19.
For a recent empirical example of the proposed methodological synthesis (see Wagoner, in press).
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Acknowledgments
I want to thank the Gates Cambridge Trust for generously funding me through my PhD at the University of Cambridge. I would also like to recognize Nicole Kronberger, Hala Mahmoud, Jaan Valsiner, and Tania Zittoun for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Wagoner, B. (2009). The Experimental Methodology of Constructive Microgenesis. In: Valsiner, J., Molenaar, P., Lyra, M., Chaudhary, N. (eds) Dynamic Process Methodology in the Social and Developmental Sciences. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-95922-1_5
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