Jan Smedslund
Biographic Data
| ID | 98880 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jan Smedslund |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jan |
| FAMILY NAME | Smedslund |
| SIGNATURE | SMEDSLUND J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oslo |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Why Psychology Cannot be an Empirical Science
Research-Based Knowledge in Psychology
The bricoleur model of psychological practice
A bricoleur is a resource person enlisted when conventional procedures in daily life fail to work, and who utilizes whatever is at hand in the given situation to effect a solution. The psychologist- cum-bricoleur relies on three sources of knowledge: what we all know about being human because we are human, what we know about some others because we participate in particular shared meaning systems (language and culture), and what we know about uniq…
What follows from what we all know about human beings
This is the third part of a trilogy. The first article is a critique of current empirical research and the second presents the bricoleur model of practice. Here, I try to describe parts of what follows from what we all know about being human because we are human. This knowledge may be partly inherited: that is, we may have an inborn disposition to understand other members of our species in certain ways. An axiomatic system consisting of nine axio…
Meaning of words and the use of axiomatics in psychological theory
What Kind of Propositions Are Set Forth in Developmental Research? Five Case Studies
Five studies published in Child Development, and selected without advance knowledge of their contents, were examined with respect to the metatheoretical status of their hypotheses. Although the hypotheses are treated as empirical, many of them are necessarily true and, hence, insensitive to empirical observation. Studies undertaken to test such hypotheses are labeled pseudoempirical. The high incidence of predominantly pseudoempirical studies (fo…
Auxiliary versus Theoretical Hypotheses and Ordinary versus Scientific Language
The Mismatch between Current Research Methods and the Nature of Psychological Phenomena
Psychological research and practice both start from what we all know about being human because we are human, what we know about each other because we participate in shared meaning systems (language and culture), and what we know about unique individuals. Practitioners rely on these three sources of knowledge, but researchers try to establish a fourth kind by looking for a limited number of general and empirically based regularities. However, this…
From Heider to Psycho-Logic
Fritz Heider pointed out that common-sense psychology contains many analytic propositions. This discovery opened up the possibility that many scientific psychological hypotheses are also analytic and that the ensuing studies are pseudoempirical, that is, they only test the truth of auxiliary hypotheses. This appears to frequently be the case. The reason may be that hypotheses involving semantically related variables are plausible but nonempirical…
Social Representations and Psychologic
Some concepts and assumptions in Moscovici's theory of social representations are analyzed from the point of view of psychologic. Psychologic is an explication and systematization of the psychological common sense embedded in ordinary language. It emphasizes preciseness and logical strictness in contrast to Moscovici's reluctance to define his terms. After a brief presentation of psychologic, the following topics are discussed: the concept of soc…
The structure of psychological common sense
How Shall the Concept of Anger be Defined
Six positions are described on the question of whether psychological concepts can and should be defined. Anger is defined as follows: `P in C at t is angry at Q' = df 'P in C at t believes that at least one person whom P in C at t cares for has, intentionally or through neglect, been treated without respect by Q, and P has not forgiven Q.' The definition belongs to the system of psychologic (PL), in which the other concepts in the definition are …
Piaget's Psychology in Practice
S ummary . AS a result of eight years' experience of Piagetian research and subsequent work as a practising psychologist, certain aspects of Piaget's theories are criticised. In particular the existential status of operatory structures, the relation between logicality and understanding, and the representativeness of the tasks are questioned. Piagetian theory is seen as forcing the psychologist to adopt an artificially detached and one‐sidedly cog…
Psychological diagnostics
Why Psychology Cannot be an Empirical Science
Social Representations and Psychologic
Some concepts and assumptions in Moscovici's theory of social representations are analyzed from the point of view of psychologic. Psychologic is an explication and systematization of the psychological common sense embedded in ordinary language. It emphasizes preciseness and logical strictness in contrast to Moscovici's reluctance to define his terms. After a brief presentation of psychologic, the following topics are discussed: the concept of soc…
Research-Based Knowledge in Psychology
Piaget's Psychology in Practice
S ummary . AS a result of eight years' experience of Piagetian research and subsequent work as a practising psychologist, certain aspects of Piaget's theories are criticised. In particular the existential status of operatory structures, the relation between logicality and understanding, and the representativeness of the tasks are questioned. Piagetian theory is seen as forcing the psychologist to adopt an artificially detached and one‐sidedly cog…
From Heider to Psycho-Logic
Fritz Heider pointed out that common-sense psychology contains many analytic propositions. This discovery opened up the possibility that many scientific psychological hypotheses are also analytic and that the ensuing studies are pseudoempirical, that is, they only test the truth of auxiliary hypotheses. This appears to frequently be the case. The reason may be that hypotheses involving semantically related variables are plausible but nonempirical…
Psychological diagnostics
Piaget's Psychology in Practice
S ummary . AS a result of eight years' experience of Piagetian research and subsequent work as a practising psychologist, certain aspects of Piaget's theories are criticised. In particular the existential status of operatory structures, the relation between logicality and understanding, and the representativeness of the tasks are questioned. Piagetian theory is seen as forcing the psychologist to adopt an artificially detached and one‐sidedly cog…
How Shall the Concept of Anger be Defined
Six positions are described on the question of whether psychological concepts can and should be defined. Anger is defined as follows: `P in C at t is angry at Q' = df 'P in C at t believes that at least one person whom P in C at t cares for has, intentionally or through neglect, been treated without respect by Q, and P has not forgiven Q.' The definition belongs to the system of psychologic (PL), in which the other concepts in the definition are …
The structure of psychological common sense
Social Representations and Psychologic
Some concepts and assumptions in Moscovici's theory of social representations are analyzed from the point of view of psychologic. Psychologic is an explication and systematization of the psychological common sense embedded in ordinary language. It emphasizes preciseness and logical strictness in contrast to Moscovici's reluctance to define his terms. After a brief presentation of psychologic, the following topics are discussed: the concept of soc…
From Heider to Psycho-Logic
Fritz Heider pointed out that common-sense psychology contains many analytic propositions. This discovery opened up the possibility that many scientific psychological hypotheses are also analytic and that the ensuing studies are pseudoempirical, that is, they only test the truth of auxiliary hypotheses. This appears to frequently be the case. The reason may be that hypotheses involving semantically related variables are plausible but nonempirical…
The Mismatch between Current Research Methods and the Nature of Psychological Phenomena
Psychological research and practice both start from what we all know about being human because we are human, what we know about each other because we participate in shared meaning systems (language and culture), and what we know about unique individuals. Practitioners rely on these three sources of knowledge, but researchers try to establish a fourth kind by looking for a limited number of general and empirically based regularities. However, this…
What Kind of Propositions Are Set Forth in Developmental Research? Five Case Studies
Five studies published in Child Development, and selected without advance knowledge of their contents, were examined with respect to the metatheoretical status of their hypotheses. Although the hypotheses are treated as empirical, many of them are necessarily true and, hence, insensitive to empirical observation. Studies undertaken to test such hypotheses are labeled pseudoempirical. The high incidence of predominantly pseudoempirical studies (fo…
Auxiliary versus Theoretical Hypotheses and Ordinary versus Scientific Language
Meaning of words and the use of axiomatics in psychological theory
The bricoleur model of psychological practice
A bricoleur is a resource person enlisted when conventional procedures in daily life fail to work, and who utilizes whatever is at hand in the given situation to effect a solution. The psychologist- cum-bricoleur relies on three sources of knowledge: what we all know about being human because we are human, what we know about some others because we participate in particular shared meaning systems (language and culture), and what we know about uniq…
What follows from what we all know about human beings
This is the third part of a trilogy. The first article is a critique of current empirical research and the second presents the bricoleur model of practice. Here, I try to describe parts of what follows from what we all know about being human because we are human. This knowledge may be partly inherited: that is, we may have an inborn disposition to understand other members of our species in certain ways. An axiomatic system consisting of nine axio…
Research-Based Knowledge in Psychology
Why Psychology Cannot be an Empirical Science
Psychology (14 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Cognitive psychology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Social Representations and Identity (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Cognitive science (4 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (3 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (3 works)