Chapter 13: How Interests and Values Evolve (Sometimes Unpredictably): A Developmental Teleology of Research Encounters

What is psychological research like? What metaphor would best convey the essence of what goes on in a “typical case” of psychological research? Can we assume that psychological research works just like a photographic camera—is conducting research just like taking a snapshot of a person? Or is it more like filming a person with a video camera? In research, is it one person recording the other person, or is it more like two people talking to each other? And is this still a metaphor?

Psychological research on humans, frequently referred to as human subjects, often involves a researcher meeting a research participant. The researcher sustains an interaction with the participant, engages in a conversation, and eventually, in the context of this interaction, performs research procedures. This simple research interaction is not that different from natural human interaction; it is just that in the course of this particular relationship the researcher invites the participant to perform specific tasks and makes measurements. Naturally, there are exceptions to this pattern. Some research only involves observation of people who are oblivious to the fact of being studied, or, with the recent explosion of online survey research, sometimes the research participants do not even have to meet the researchers in person. However, the “baseline” research encounter still presupposes humans interacting with each other. And yet, surprisingly, psychology often attempts to “bracket” this interaction, methodologically “push it out” of the research encounter (e.g., through using standardized, de-personalized measurement tools), and to work as if research indeed was more like taking a snapshot rather than talking to people. And the snapshot should be like a snapshot of a landscape and not a person, so that nothing at all changes as a result of recording the image; participants should not react to the camera, interpret the photographer’s intentions, adjust their position, or even request additional pictures. Ideally, the object of study remains unchanged and unmoved by anything the researcher does.