Characterizing the Theoretical Landscape in Psychological Aging
By: Roger A. Dixon
Just as
no history of a science is without the influence of the historian and his or
her historiography, no review of scientific theory exists independently of the
filtering lens through which the theorists read, interpret, and write (Hanson,
1958) or the historically evolving conceptual, social, professional, and scientific
circumstances of the era (e.g., Kuhn, 1962; Pepper, 1970; Toulmin, 1972).
In the
past in life-span psychological research, such observations have often led to
discussion of scientific paradigms, meta-theories, and world views, as they applied
to the study of individual development and aging (e.g., Baltes & Willis, 1977;
Dixon & Lerner, 1999; Reese & Overton, 1970). This is not the present
purpose for three related reasons.
First,
the general lesson has been learned in that it is probably apparent to most
contemporary readers that theories and research methods are informed by underlying
(and often untestable) assumptions, models, metaphors, and perspectives (Overton
& Reese, 1973).
Second,
for this reason this particular line of theoretical-historical inquiry has not
been particularly active or overtly influential in recent years, at least in the
field of psychological aging. Third, one reason it has become both an acknowledged
background condition and yet rarely cited or targeted for research is that the
field may have moved to a post-paradigmatic period of interdisciplinary, integrative,
and even pragmatic perspectives and research.
Perhaps
in the earlier paradigmatic-centered period meta-theoretical differences were
accentuated (if not magnified). If so, in a post-paradigmatic period meta-theoretical
differences (if relevant) may be less likely to restrict or interrupt the
pragmatic reconnaissance of (even small) plots of common ground and the probing
expansion of these commonalities along shared conceptual and empirical boundaries.
Nevertheless,
to recap briefly, the paradigmatic view has held that, because the underlying
tendencies of different meta-approaches may be in fundamental conceptual
competition, the derived theories may be incommensurable and the associated data
collected to test the theories may be mutually unacceptable. This systemic and
often static incommensurability may exist even when the research is addressed
to common levels of analysis or evidently similar developmental phenomena (Dixon
et al., 1991).
As a
brief illustration, scholars studying the intriguing phenomena of late-life
potential or adaptive success can address different (even non-overlapping)
aspects from a variety of largely unshared conceptual and methodological
perspectives.These
include:
(a) Post-formal
or dialectical operations;
(b) Naturally
occurring differential trajectories and protection factors;
(c) Social-emotional
regulation, adaptivity, and influences;
(d) Cognitive
or self-reserve, plasticity, or expertise;
(e) Pragmatic
cognitive-personal resilience or compensation; and
(f) Multiple
forms of healthy or successful aging
(e.g., Baltes
& Baltes, 1990; Ericsson & Smith, 1991; Labouvie-Vief, 1980; Pushkar et
al., 1998; Schaie & Carstensen, 2006; Vaillant, 2002).
However,
paradigm-level perspectives are viewed also as changing, fallible, modifiable, responsive
to data, and adaptive (or not). In addition, such meta-theoretical perspectives
may be inextricably interdisciplinary, theories may be more flexible and pluralistic,
methods are definitely more comprehensive and powerful, and the research goals
may become more pragmatic and integrative.
Specifically,
research may become less characterized by how it contributes to a covering meta-theory
or global theory. Instead, theoretically and clinically significant research
may be evaluated in terms of how functional they are, regardless of the
academic sources of ideas, levels of analyses (biological,
individual–psychological, social–cultural), or the simplicity–complexity of
results.
References:
Handbook
of the Psychology of Aging, K. Warner Schaie,
and Sherry L. Willis, 2011, Elsevier Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment