2014 mainstream psychology (encyclopedia entry)

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Chapter Title Mainstream Psychology

Copyright Year 2014

Copyright Holder Springer Science+Business Media New York

Corresponding Author Family Name Toomela

Particle

Given Name Aaro

Suffix

Division/Department Institute of Psychology

Organization/University Tallinn University

City Tallinn

Country Estonia

Email [email protected]

Comp. by: Udayasankar Stage: Galleys Chapter No.: 667 Title Name: ECPDate:29/9/13 Time:13:42:04 Page Number: 1

1 M

2 Mainstream Psychology

3 Aaro Toomela

4Au1 Institute of Psychology, Tallinn University,

5 Tallinn, Estonia

6 Introduction

7 Every concept is simultaneously defined in two

8 ways; the positive aspect of a definition contains

9 understanding of what characterizes the thing

10 referred to by the concept. (For brevity, “thing”

11 is used to denote any distinguishable aspect of

12 reality.) The negative aspect, in turn, contains

13 understanding of what is not referred to by the

14 concept. So, in respect to the list of qualities

15 defining a concept, there must always be some-

16 thing that is not characterized by the same list of

17 qualities. Qualities that characterize a thing X and

18 its opposite, non-X, are not defining and should

19 therefore not be components of a definition. Fur-

20 ther, it is important that the world can be distin-

21 guished into things at different levels of analysis

22 and in different perspectives. Therefore, every

23 definition is specific to a level and perspective,

24 that is, context. These ideas need to be taken into

25 account in defining mainstream psychology

26 (MP), which necessarily entails the existence of

27 non-mainstream psychology (non-MP). As it is

28 possible to distinguish more than one kind of non-

29 MPs, the definition of MP varies depending on

30 the choice of non-MP perspective.

31Definition

32Mainstream psychology is an approach to the

33science of mind accepted by majority of psychol-

34ogists and defined by ontological and epistemo-

35logical qualities questioned by representatives of

36non-mainstream psychology.

37Keywords

38Mainstream psychology; methodology; para-

39digm; quantitative; qualitative; structural-

40systemic

41History

42Historically, all sciences begin with different

43scholars aiming at understanding

44a phenomenon. In these attempts, the phenome-

45non is described and interpreted differently so

46that an increasing number of competing schools

47can be identified in science (cf. Kuhn, 1970). In

48some moment in the history of science, one

49school will be accepted by a larger community

50of scientists as a paradigm, as “the entire constel-

51lation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on

52shared by the members of a given community”

53(Kuhn, p. 175). In psychology, paradigms

54emerged around the beginning of the twentieth

55century. By 1920s, three dominant paradigms

56could be distinguished. North American psychol-

57ogy was dominated by behaviorist thought and

T. Teo (ed.), Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7,# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014


58 continental European psychology followed ver-

59 sions of what can be called structural-systemic

60 psychology (SSP), among them more known

61 today German-Austrian Gestalt psychology

62 and the Russian functional-systemic approach

63 (cf. Toomela, 2007a; Watson, 1934). The third

64 paradigm, that of psychoanalysis, was less

65 geographically defined; it was followed by

66 communities of psychologists both in North

67 America and Europe. Asian, African, Australian,

68 and South American psychological thought

69 has contributed less to the development of

70 psychology; on these continents, usually the

71 dominant European or North American

72 paradigms were adopted.

73 After World War II, North American behav-

74 iorism-based thinking became increasingly dom-

75 inant in the world and developed into mainstream

76 psychology. Despite superficial changes, the

77 ontological and epistemological principles

78 underlying the originally North American para-

79 digm of psychology have remained unaltered

80 (Toomela, 2007a) with perhaps one exception:

81 MP accepted the idea that psychologists can, in

82 principle, study nonobservable processes that

83 underlie observable behavior. This superficial

84 paradigmatic turn has been called cognitive

85 revolution.

86 Today, next to MP, two non-MP paradigms

87 can be identified (see, for details, Toomela,

88 2010d, 2012). Since the 1970s, a growing number

89 of scholars have opposed their views against MP.

90 MP is, among other characteristics, defined by

91 adherence to quantitative methods. The modern

92 qualitative non-MP research paradigm (modern

93 qualitative psychology, MQP) with numerous

94 schools in it, emerged as a result of the critique

95 of the MP’s methodology. The second non-MP

96 paradigm is that of SSP that characterized

97 pre-WWII continental European psychology.

98 Today, this paradigm has faded into a few

99 remaining schools of thought despite the fact

100 that there has been no scientific reason to aban-

101 don structural-systemic principles (Toomela,

102 2007a) and also the theoretical weaknesses of

103 both MP (Toomela, 2008a, b, 2010a, c) and

104 MQP (Toomela, 2011, 2012).

105Traditional Debates

106MP, as a dominant paradigm, is not opposing

107itself to other approaches; these are rather largely

108ignored by MP. MP assumes itself to be

109a scientific discipline that aims to understand

110and explain behavior and mind. Explanation is

111understood in MP in the Cartesian-Humean per-

112spective (cf. Toomela, 2010d, 2012) as a lawful

113relationship between events (mostly in experi-

114mental studies) or quantitative levels of them.

115This lawful relationship is expressed as some

116kind of (statistical) relationship where emergence

117or presence of one event or level of it can be

118predicted to some degree beyond chance on the

119basis of knowing the level of other events.

120Events in MP are, as a rule, encoded as vari-

121ables. Research methodology is usually based on

122hypothesis testing, which can have two forms. In

123less common but more valued cases experiments

124are conducted to test some specific hypotheses

125about the cause-effect relationships between

126events. More commonly, however, studies are

127conducted to test statistically whether the so-

128called null hypothesis of no statistical relation-

129ship between the studied variables does not hold.

130Generally, it is assumed that only rejection of null

131hypotheses is scientifically valuable; results with

132no statistical relationships between variables are

133rarely reported.

134Two central issues in MP methodology are

135those of reliability and validity of research tools

136and study results. Reliability is mostly defined in

137terms of study procedures (test-retest reliability,

138inter-rater reliability, internal consistency). At

139the same time, studies as a whole are assumed

140to be reliable after some statistical relationship

141among variables has been discovered. Replica-

142tions of studies are rarely conducted and even

143more rarely published. Validity, in turn, is under-

144stood in many ways. One way to define validity is

145in terms of different study procedures supposedly

146measuring the same underlying construct; perfor-

147mances on different tests should correlate one

148with another (construct validity, convergent

149validity, criterion validity, concurrent validity).

150In another way, validity is understood as

151a theoretical concept; in that case, validity is

M 2 Mainstream Psychology


152 demonstrated either by comparing the measure-

153 ment method with some theory (content validity)

154 or by feelings of the researcher (face validity).

155 Validity can also be defined as the question of

156 whether a test measures what it purports to mea-

157 sure (Kelley, 1927). In MP theories of validity it

158 is assumed (usually implicitly) that externally

159 similar behaviors or their results reflect one and

160 the same underlying psychological process. This

161 assumption practically rules out the possibility

162 to validate research tools in Kelley’s sense

163 (cf. Toomela, 2008b).

164 MP is often claimed to be based on positive

165 philosophy or positivism. It is commonly

166 suggested that MP’s quantitative approach,

167 hypothesis testing and experimental methodol-

168 ogy, reduction of mental properties to mechanis-

169 tic explanation, and efficient causality are all

170 symptoms of positivism. This claim is not justi-

171 fied; MP, while following all these mentioned

172 principles indeed, deviates substantially from

173 the positivist view on science, at least from the

174 Comtean version of it. Comte quite explicitly

175 rejected the methodology, similar to that applied

176 in MP today, as inappropriate for studying mental

177 and social phenomena (cf. Comte, 1875, 1893).

178 Thus, MP is positivist only in the limits of today’s

179 definition of it; this definition is at odds with

180 Comte’s positive philosophy, which, curiously,

181 would in large part correspond more to several

182 non-MP approaches.

183 Critical Debates

184 From the non-MP perspective, several fundamen-

185 tal characteristics of MP are questioned and often

186 also rejected as inappropriate for understanding

187 mind. The number and nature of characteristics of

188 the MP depend on the choice of the non-MP as

189 a theoretical context. As there are reasons to

190 suggest that MP and MQP share some fundamen-

191 tal theoretical weaknesses (Toomela, 2011), MP

192 here is defined from the SSP perspective.

193 MP is characterized by several ontological and

194 epistemological principles that are highly ques-

195 tionable from both non-MP perspectives.

196 According to an idealized view of science,

197discovery of controversies and theoretically

198questionable ideas in science should lead to

199a debate between proponents and opponents of

200the questioned principles. Actually, however,

201there are almost no debates. The representatives

202of non-MPs present an increasing number of jus-

203tifications against the principles underlying MP;

204followers of the MP, however, overwhelmingly

205tend to ignore all the theoretical ideas proposed

206against MP. This is characteristic of any para-

207digm, which not only determines the questions

208worthy to answer – and questions, including

209methodological, not worthy to answer – but also

210becomes blind as to its own ontological and epis-

211temological grounds (cf., Kuhn, 1970). Here lies

212another reason for selecting SSP as a ground for

213defining MP; this view that can be defined as

214metaparadigmatic (Toomela, 2007b, see also

215Vygotsky, 1982) is explicitly conscious and crit-

216ical about its own principles. This leads us to the

217first characteristic of MP.

218Ontological and Epistemological Blindness

219MP is characterized by the lack of continuous

220analysis of the ontological and epistemological

221principles underlying it. As a result, many funda-

222mentally important questions are not even asked.

223For example, MP relies heavily on the assump-

224tion that psychological attributes can be mea-

225sured; use of most quantitative data-

226interpretation methods is based on this assump-

227tion. Today, two approaches to the question of

228measurability can be identified. There are those

229who ask the question; they without exception

230provide very strong arguments leading to the

231conclusion that psychological attributes are not

232measurable in principle (e.g., Michell, 2000,

2332010; Toomela, 2008b, 2010c). The other

234approach characterizes MP; instead of providing

235arguments for measurability, the question is not

236asked and the whole issue is ignored.

237There are many other fundamental questions

238that are not asked in MP: What is science? What

239is scientific knowledge?What methods allow one

240to answer the questions asked and why? This set

241of questions would constitute a theoretical field of

242methodology (cf. Vygotsky, 1982), which is

243absent in MP. In MP, under the name of

Mainstream Psychology 3 M


244 methodology, research methods are studied and

245 developed but not the ontological and epistemo-

246 logical assumptions that underlie the use of the

247 methods. So, for example, there are numerous

248 studies of statistical factor analyses, methods

249 that are used, among other aims, to reveal

250 unobservable processes underlying the observed

251 behaviors encoded as quantitative variables. “Big

252 Five” personality dimensions, for example, were

253 “discovered” in this way (cf., e.g., Costa &

254 McCrae, 1992). But there it is not demonstrated

255 that factor analysis in principle allows under-

256 standing such nonobservable processes. In fact,

257 the opposite is true. The scholars who introduced

258 factor analysis into psychology explicitly stated

259 that it creates only man-made inventions and not

260 understanding of the nature of the studied things

261 (Thurstone, 1935). Since then, no theoretical jus-

262 tification is provided to demonstrate that

263 Thurstone was wrong. Instead, the question is

264 not asked.

265 Another symptom that points to ontological

266 and epistemological blindness emerges in the

267 analysis of the ways the fundamental notions are

268 used in MP. In everyday research, the theoretical

269 notions are usually left without explicit defini-

270 tion. This would not be a problem, if each of

271 these notions would be defined in only one way.

272 But this is not the case. Practically all important

273 notions in psychology – be it mind, culture, per-

274 sonality, intelligence, consciousness, emotion,

275 motivation, language, and so on – is defined in

276 numerous ways. Even the superficially simple

277 concept of memory is defined in at least six

278 ways (Tulving, 2000). Nevertheless, the

279 researchers do not state which of the definitions

280 they use and why. As a result, either theories

281 emerge to explain essentially qualitatively differ-

282 ent phenomena that have been studied under the

283 same name or different schools are created, each

284 based on implicitly different definition of super-

285 ficially the same concept. Instead of converging

286 understandings of studied things, an increasing

287 confusion develops in this process.

288 Historical and Geographical Blindness

289 One assumption that underlies MP is that of con-

290 tinuous progress. It is assumed that science

291develops so that an increasingly better under-

292standing of studied things is achieved in time. If

293it were true, there would be no need to learn the

294history of the science, as the accomplishments of

295earlier generations of scientists would be part of

296today’s understanding anyway. Further, as

297today’s MP is mostly spread in English, only

298sources in English, and therefore mostly of

299North American and British origin, are worthy

300to know. The assumption of uniform progress

301over the history of thought and science is another

302questionable assumption Study of history reveals

303numerous twists and turns in the course of it;

304sometimes knowledge is lost in time and some-

305times knowledge created turns out to be out of

306date at the very moment of its creation. The same

307holds true for MP today.

308If the assumption of scientific progress is

309incorrect, there should be symptoms of it avail-

310able. And so it is. One strong symptom of histor-

311ical and geographical blindness is rediscovery of

312already discovered ideas. The number of scien-

313tists in the world is large and their research output

314vast. Therefore, finding a few rediscoveries

315would not be surprising. If, however, the number

316of rediscoveries is large, includes many fields of

317psychology, and contains rediscoveries of funda-

318mentally important principles, historical and geo-

319graphic blindness can be diagnosed. Indeed,

320rediscoveries characterize practically all fields

321of MP and include many fundamental principles

322of it; mostly, the newly discovered ideas were

323first formulated by continental European scholars

324before WWII, that is, by SSP (for numerous

325examples, see Toomela, 2010b; Toomela &

326Valsiner, 2010).

327Ontological Characteristics of the MP: How

328the (Human) Mind is Understood

329MP is grounded upon several questionable

330assumptions about the nature of the mind. Even

331though occasional theoretical statements can be

332found in MP, which may seem to reject the fol-

333lowing assumptions as a ground for MP, the

334actual research and theories in MP are not

335affected by those abstract statements.



336 Atomist Program

337 Superficially it may seem that MP has rejected

338 atomism together with behaviorism. Yet, MP is

339 characterized by multiple symptoms of it. The

340 atomist program was formulated by, among

341 others, Titchener (1898, 1899, 1910). According

342 to him, psychology must accomplish three tasks:

343 analyze mental experience into its elements, for-

344 mulate laws of connection of these elements, and

345 explain mental processes in terms of their parallel

346 processes in the nervous system. Every psychical

347 element is determined by intrinsic and individual

348 to the element quality and intensity. Study of laws

349 of connection, in turn, passes beyond the elemen-

350 tary processes and becomes a kind of anatomy of

351 functions, such as memory, recognition, judg-

352 ment, and volition, etc. It is also noteworthy that

353 connections of elements are understood in terms

354 of associations; no possibility for qualitative dif-

355 ferences in relationships is assumed. And, finally,

356 as mental processes cannot cause one another, the

357 explanation of them must be sought for in the

358 working of the nervous system.

359 The atomist program corresponds very closely

360 to MP even though the fundamental and irrepa-

361 rable weaknesses of it were already revealed by

362 SSP more than eight decades ago. Several ques-

363 tionable research practices and theories follow

364 from the atomist program.

365 Fragmentation MP is fragmented into an

366 increasing number of subfields with little or no

367 theoretical connection between them. In every of

368 the fields, processes identified on the functional

369 basis – such as memory, perception, intelligence,

370 personality, collectivism, among many others –

371 are studied as if they had no connection one to

372 another. Instead of assuming that all the studied

373 functions emerge from the same unitary mind, it

374 is assumed that each and every one of them con-

375 stitutes an autonomous module (cf. Fodor, 1983).

376 Such fragmentation is an inevitable consequence

377 of the idea that elements of mind, isolated from

378 a whole, are characterized by the same “individ-

379 ual and intrinsic” qualities they have as parts of

380 a whole. According to SSP, the properties of the

381 elements change when included into a whole. It is

382 ignored in MP that there would be no memory

383without perception or action, no personality or

384intelligence without cognitive processes. As

385every one of the isolated by MP functions com-

386prises part of a mind as a whole, no valid theory

387can emerge about any of them if they are postu-

388lated to be autonomous.

389Mixing of the Levels of Analysis Another

390consequence of studying functions as collections

391of autonomous elements is confusion of the levels

392of analysis. Each of the studied functions, in

393fact every single behavioral act, is based on the

394activity of a mind as a whole. If the functions

395are studied as if isolated, it is not possible to

396distinguish characteristics specific to the element

397and characteristics that actually characterize the

398whole. So each of the segregated fields in MP

399tends to become a theory of a whole mind. Let us

400take just one example out of many; a relatively

401recent theme in memory psychology is the

402problem of binding, how the unity of memory is

403achieved in the distributed processes of the brain

404(e.g., Zimmer, Mecklinger, & Lindenberger,

4052006). In theories of binding it is ignored that

406the “function of binding” has already been iso-

407lated and studied in psychology, just in another

408field. This function is called thinking, which

409essentially is a process of organizing experiences

410(Vygotsky, 1926). The terminology of binding

411theories and theories of thinking has practically

412no overlap, even though to explain binding in

413memory we need only to propose that memory

414processes are not isolated but interact with

415thought processes.

416Brain as a Seat of Mind Consistently following

417the atomist program, it is assumed in MP that

418mind “is in the brain” and explanation of the

419mind can be found in studies of brain functioning.

420Thus, the brain and its relation to behavior

421became, together with advancements of the non-

422invasive methods of studying brain structure and

423physiology, the dominant and most prestigious

424field of studies in MP. There can be no doubt

425that the nervous system is a necessary condition

426of mind. But it is highly questionable whether

427mind can be fully accounted for only by the

428brain processes. According to SSP, mind depends


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429 simultaneously on the nervous system and the

430 environment; therefore, in order to understand

431 mind, it cannot be separated from the environ-

432 ment. After all, there would be no content of mind

433 without environment and experiences of it. There

434 also would be no activity, as all activity of any

435 organism is about relationships with its environ-

436 ment. Not only mind but even life can be under-

437 stood only as structural-systemic unity of an

438 organism and its environment (e.g., Anokhin,

439 1975). Therefore, mind cannot be understood

440 without studying the (environmental) history of

441 an individual.

442 Mind Can Be Isolated from the Environment,

443 Therefore, There is No Need for the Theory of

444 Environment Isolation of mind from environ-

445 ment is related to another questionable practice in

446 MP; MP lacks a psychological theory of environ-

447 ment. Perhaps one of the most obvious symptoms

448 of this atheoretical approach to environment is

449 the idea of a “stimulus.” In MP, it is assumed that

450 in studies stimuli are presented to subjects and

451 behaviors that emerge in response to the stimuli

452 reflect the stimulus-specific mental processes

453 responsible for the behavior. Stimulus, as part of

454 environment, however, cannot be defined

455 unequivocally. First, already at the sensory

456 level, what may seem to be a stimulus for an

457 experimenter can be a complex set of sensory

458 excitations for a perceiver. A food stimulus for

459 an animal is not one stimulus; a piece of bread on

460 the tongue is perceived through multiple chan-

461 nels – taste, touch, smell, and temperature. Even

462 more, impulses that emerge in sensory organs as

463 a response to the food travel with different speeds

464 and arrive, therefore, in the central nervous sys-

465 tem at different times so that the earlier sensory

466 excitation can become a conditioning stimulus to

467 that arriving later (Anokhin, 1975). Current

468 understanding of the physiology of sensory sys-

469 tems informs that unitary environmental stimulus

470 is distributed among separate channels not only

471 between different sensory modalities but also

472 within all sensory modalities as well (e.g.,

473 Levine, 2000). Thus, physiologically, there is no

474 one unitary stimulus in the environment.

475Second, physically, the same environment is

476perceived qualitatively differently depending on

477the personal history of experiences of individ-

478uals. In other words, the “same” environment is

479never the same from the individual’s point of

480view. For this reason, geographical or physical

481environment, as it is, must be distinguished from

482the behavioral environment, as it is perceived

483(Koffka, 1935).

484MP has no theory of environment that would

485explicate the physiological and psychological

486relationship of an individual to his or her personal

487environment.Without such theory, no valid infer-

488ences can be made as to the psychological

489essence of responses to stimuli. Consequences

490of the lack of the theory of environment are far

491reaching. An individual becomes isolated from

492the real physical, biological, and social world.

493Theory-Application Gap The MP assumption

494that attributes mind to the individual and not to

495individual-environment unity inevitably leads to

496loss of relationship between theory, which is

497about an individual, and application, which is

498always about relationship of an individual to the

499environment. Therefore, it is not surprising to

500discover that MP theories that underlie practices

501of education, clinical psychology, and other fields

502of application are, as a rule, created ad hoc, with

503very remote connection to the theories of individ-

504ual functions studied in segregated fields.

505Epistemological-Methodological

506Characteristics of the MP

507MP is characterized by several methodological

508approaches and methodical practices that are

509questionable from the non-MP perspective.

510These practices, again, might have been refuted

511in MP at the abstract level but no effect of such

512refutations can be observed in actual research.

513Only a few more fundamental epistemological-

514methodological characteristics of the MP will be

515provided next.

516Relationships but Not Things Are Studied

517Philosophers have had different opinions as to

518what is humanly possible to know about the

519world. MP follows the Cartesian-Humean



520 principle, according to which only relationships

521 between events, that is, efficient causality, can be

522 known. This is in opposition to another view,

523 according to which scientific knowledge is

524 about things and their relationships; in addition

525 to efficient causality, other causes, such as formal

526 and material (or systemic-structural, in modern

527 terms) can be known. The latter view is rooted in

528 the Aristotelian theory of causality (see Toomela,

529 2010a, 2012, for details). Accordingly, in MP

530 only relationships between events and not things

531 themselves are studied. In this epistemology, it is

532 assumed that mind can be understood by

533 encoding observed events – behaviors – into vari-

534 ables and then interpreting the covariations and

535 patterns of covariations among the encoded vari-

536 ables. In this way, however, it is possible to

537 discover only how things are related to one

538 another but not what the thing under study is

539 (Toomela, 2011). This limitation emerges

540 because, according to the structural-systemic

541 approach, qualitatively different wholes emerge

542 from the same elements in different relationships.

543 Knowledge about the qualitative nature of rela-

544 tionships is assumed to be irrelevant in MP.

545 Quantitative Methods

546 Following a consistently atomistic program, MP

547 is searching only for quantitative relationships

548 between variables; it is searching for associa-

549 tions. Another ungrounded assumption behind

550 quantitative methodology is the atomistic idea

551 that mental elements are all determined both by

552 quality and intensity, that is, they can be mea-

553 sured. As was already discussed, so far no psy-

554 chological attribute has been discovered that

555 could be measured; there are theoretical reasons

556 to doubt whether it is possible in principle.

557 Study of Individual Differences, not Individuals

558 with Minds

559 The Cartesian-Humean epistemological assump-

560 tion that discovery of relationships between

561 events is one of the main aims of science (see

562 above) directs research methodology away from

563 studying the mind. Mind, even though it consti-

564 tutes essentially an individual-environment unity,

565 is at the same time not shared by different

566individuals. But MP, with extremely rare excep-

567tions, studies differences between individuals and

568not individuals in their environments. There are

569theoretically well-grounded reasons to reject

570study of individual differences and replace it

571with a person-oriented approach (e.g., Molenaar,

5722004; Toomela, 2010a).

573Priority of Methods over Scientific Questions

574In MP, the order of scientific thinking is ques-

575tionable. It could be expected that in science

576a question first is formulated and the methods

577for answering it are then chosen. In MP, however,

578it is decided first that quantitative individual-

579differences methods must be used; scientific

580questions are adapted to fit the methods

581(Toomela, 2011). Many research questions that

582emerge in non-MP can never be asked in MP

583because of the limited choice of methods.

584International Relevance

585MP is largely based on North American philoso-

586phy and practice of psychology as a science

587established in the beginning of the twentieth

588century. After the Second World War, the North

589American psychological paradigm spread and

590now also covers large parts of European

591approaches (Toomela, 2007a). The MP paradigm

592is also language related; MP is mostly published

593in English. A wider variety of paradigms together

594with deeper theoretical discussion of the funda-

595mental ontological and epistemological issues of

596psychology is represented in other language

597areas, among them Spanish, German, French,

598Portuguese, Russian, and Japanese.

599Practice Relevance

600MP’s contribution to practice is highly

601constrained by its methods of research.

602Corresponding to its methods, MP can contribute

603only to situations where statistical variable-based

604prediction of events is possible. Among them are,

605for example, prediction of therapy effects in clin-

606ical psychology, prediction of job performance in



607 personnel selection, and prediction of teaching

608 methods effects on student achievement level.

609 As one of the basic and incorrect assumptions of

610 MP is that externally similar behaviors emerge on

611 the basis of similar underlying mental processes,

612 no scientifically grounded system of interven-

613 tions – beyond statistical prediction – can be

614 created on the basis of the theory. Non-MP

615 approaches, in turn, with their emphasis on indi-

616 viduals and personal characteristics, would be

617 able to provide theoretically better grounded

618 therapies or teaching methods. Yet, this potential

619 of non-MP approaches is not widely realized due

620 to financing and application practices of relevant

621 authorities.

622 Future Directions

623 MP is characterized by numerous fundamental

624 ontological and epistemological problems. The

625 weakness of MP, however, does not lie only in

626 these problems; the practice of MP of ignoring

627 the issues raised by non-MPs constitutes a far

628 deeper problem. It is a symptom of what can be

629 called pathological science (cf. Michell, 2000).

630 Science that does not continuously check its own

631 ontology and epistemology is very likely to

632 become blind as to its own fundamental flaws.

633 Future science can only win from questioning its

634 own basis again and again.

635 References

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642 (Ed.), The positive philosophy of Auguste Comte. In643 two volumes (Vol. 1, pp. 1–397). London: Kegan Paul,

644 Trench, Tr€ubner.645 Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO646 personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO five-647 factor inventory (NEO-FFI). Professional manual.648 Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

649 Fodor, J. A. (1983). The modularity of mind. Cambridge,

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