Abstract
Subjectivity is ubiquitous and implies perspectives that range in scope from the intrapersonal (as in individual musings and daydreams) to the intercultural (as in communication between and among identities) and in sophistication from the inchoate babblings of infants to the theoretical pronouncements of philosophers and mathematicians. Q methodology is a philosophical and conceptual framework that, in tandem with its technical and analytical procedures, provides the basis for a science of subjectivity that is applicable across all humanities and sciences as well as their extensions into public policy. This article presents the basic principles and procedures of Q methodology (rooted in the fundamentals of factor-analytic developments of the past century) and demonstrates its applicability to a variety of subject-matter domains, including literary interpretation, strategic planning and decision making, scientific creativity, program evaluation, and the intensive analysis of single cases.
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Notes
It is important to point out that the a priori structuring of Q samples is not for testing, i.e., unlike the case in rating scales, no effort is made to prove, for example, that a statement unequivocally belongs in category (ad). The purpose of the design in Table 1 is simply to help facilitate the drawing of a diverse set of statements from the concourse. This task can be helped along by selecting statements from each of the nine categories that are as different from one another as possible, which assists in offsetting the artificial boundaries of the design. For further details on Q-sample structuring, see Brown, Baltrinic, and Jencius (in press).
Factor analysis is a topic too extensive to address in this brief summary. Detailed treatment is in Brown (1980) and in a recent discussion among Akhtar-Danesh (2016), Braswell (2016), and Brown (2016). Note that the number of factors that emerge in any study can range widely—from one only (if all participants respond in a uniform way) to a large number (if responses are more idiosyncratic)—and depends solely on the actual performances of the participants. That the studies reported in this article all produce three factors is entirely fortuitous.
Stephenson was distinguished professor of advertising research in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and he and many of his students were deeply involved in the creative side of advertising, as in campaign themes and imagery, e.g., in the naming of the Studebaker Lark automobile (Stephenson, 1979, 1985).
It is also worth noting that Tolbert (2017) supplemented the set of 20 empirical Q sorts with theoretical Q sorts (e.g., a Q sort simulating pure creative thought, another simulating pure intuitive thought, and another pure logical thought) that served as conceptual templates in the resulting factor matrix.
Teo (2017) does not approve of the term perspective, asserting that “understanding subjectivity as a perspective is too ‘mental’ and that there are good reasons to refer to subjectivity as a first-person standpoint” (p. 283), but this is only semantics. There is nothing especially mental about a perspective, or vantage point, which is comparable to a frame of reference, or coordinate system, in relativity theory (Brown & Taylor, 1973). And if the person is asked to “provide a Q sort as you think your spouse would perform it,” the Q sort then becomes third person.
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Data on decision making and scientific creativity are in the possession of the authors of those studies cited. Data on poetic interpretation and program evaluation are in the possession of the author. Data on the single case (on solitude) are unavailable due to confidentiality.
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Revised from a presentation at the Thirteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, July 25–27, 2018, Granada, Spain. The author benefited from comments from James Good, Martin Jencius, and Noel W. Smith, and especially from extended discussions with Bryan Midgley.
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Brown, S.R. Subjectivity in the Human Sciences. Psychol Rec 69, 565–579 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-019-00354-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-019-00354-5