Illusory Essences: A Bias Holding Back Theorizing in Psychological Science.
Publication Date
2022-03Journal Title
Perspect Psychol Sci
ISSN
1745-6916
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
17
Issue
2
Pages
491-506
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Brick, C., Hood, B., Ekroll, V., & de-Wit, L. (2022). Illusory Essences: A Bias Holding Back Theorizing in Psychological Science.. Perspect Psychol Sci, 17 (2), 491-506. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691621991838
Abstract
The reliance in psychology on verbal definitions means that psychological research is unusually moored to how humans think and communicate about categories. Psychological concepts (e.g., intelligence, attention) are easily assumed to represent objective, definable categories with an underlying essence. Like the "vital forces" previously thought to animate life, these assumed essences can create an illusion of understanding. By synthesizing a wide range of research lines from cognitive, clinical, and biological psychology and neuroscience, we describe a pervasive tendency across psychological science to assume that essences explain phenomena. Labeling a complex phenomenon can appear as theoretical progress before there is sufficient evidence that the described category has a definable essence or known boundary conditions. Category labels can further undermine progress by masking contingent and contextual relationships and obscuring the need to specify mechanisms. Finally, we highlight examples of promising methods that circumvent the lure of essences and suggest four concrete strategies for identifying and avoiding essentialist intuitions in theory development.
Keywords
essentialism, natural kinds, categories, labels, validity, metascience
Identifiers
10.1177_1745691621991838
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691621991838
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/334779
Rights
Licence:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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