The Phenomenology of Between: An Intersubjective Epistemology for Psychological Science

Abstract

We outline the concept of intersubjective corroboration as an epistemology for psychological science. Psychological knowledge arises neither from subjectivity nor objectivity, but from intersubjective processes that occur between people. Intersubjective corroboration holds that psychological inquiry is optimally organized around three mutually-constituting activities: Conceptual coordination involves clarifying a priori theoretical concepts by subjecting them to rigorous philosophical analysis. Intersubjective engagement is the research process itself -- a form of establishing intersubjectivity with participants. Intersubjective corroboration consists of verifying knowledge claims through the corroboration of multiple sources of evidence. We illustrate the approach in a study on the identification of emotion.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Jennifer Evans and Nora Cochrane for their able assistance in the analysis of emotional experience presented in this study. We are also deeply grateful to the student who acted as a research participant in this study. We also thank Carmen Dell’Averssano for her contributions to the ideas expressed in this article. This research was made possible by a Cygnaeus Scholarship provided by the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, Univeristy of Jyvaskyla, Jyvaskyla Finland.

Notes

1 Not all forms of intersubjective activity involve intersubjective corroboration. We propose the concept of corroboration as a principle for understanding what it means to verify or give credibility to scientific and social scientific claims. Most everyday forms of social engagement are not directed explicitly toward testing the adequacy of claims to knowledge.

2 The question of the existence, nature, and universality of basic emotions and their expressions is a controversial one. Some theorists have discriminated between basic and higher-order emotions. From this view, basic emotions refer to discrete neurophysiologically based reactions to particular motive-relevant events that emerge early in development, are organized around a particular feeling tone, and are expressed by a characteristic facial pattern (Anderson, 2015; Ekman, 1993). Others deny the existence of basic emotions, and argue that there is greater variability in the constitution and expression in emotions that have been described as basic (Ortony & Turner, 1990; Scherer & Ellgring, 2007). For example, some have suggested members of different cultures classify facial expressions that have been seen as reflections of basic emotions in different ways, thus calling attention to the assumption of universality (Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, & Barrett, 2014). The question of whether emotions exhibit universality is independent, however, of Wittgenstein’s suggestion that bodily expressions (facial or otherwise) provide public criteria on which cultures organize the meaning of emotion words. From a Wittgensteinian framework, it is not only possible but also likely that there would be variation among cultures in the ways in which people use words to parse their experience of the world, including the world of emotional experience. The argument is not that bodily patterns express universal emotions (although this is possible); instead, it is that in order to be intelligible to one another, the meaning of the words we use to refer to our experiences must be grounded in some sort of public criteria. It is plausible and even likely that different cultures will seize on different modes of expressive behavior as grounds for the communal construction of categories of emotional meaning.

3 The course in question was devoted in part to promoting the development of a growth mindset in students. According to Dweck (2006), because students with a fixed mindset believe their abilities are given and unchangeable, to protect self-esteem, they tend to avoid tasks at which they might fail. Students with a growth mindset believe that their abilities come into existence through effort and perseverance. For them, failure does not threaten self-esteem; it merely indicates that more effort is needed to learn

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael F. Mascolo

Michael F. Mascolo is a Professor of Psychology at Merrimack College.

Eeva Kallio

Eeva Kallio is an Adjunct Professor at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.