CONCEPTS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND THE NEED TO CRITICALLY REFLECT ON THEM

Authors

  • Thea IONESCU Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Department of Psychology, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, theaionescu@psychology.ro https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7750-2226

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbpsyped.2022.2.04

Keywords:

concepts in psychology, cognition, flexibility.

Abstract

This opinion article raises the issue of conceptual crisis in psychology, i.e. the problem of having several meanings underlying many of the concepts we study. After exemplifying with the concepts of “flexibility” and “cognition”, I propose three avenues on the way to conceptual clarity, and stress the need for a stronger theoretical psychology.

References

Aldao, A., Sheppes, G., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation flexibility. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 39(3), 263-278.

Ansarinia, M., Schrater, P., & Cardoso-Leite, P. (2022). Linking Theories and Methods in Cognitive Sciences via Joint Embedding of the Scientific Literature: The Example of Cognitive Control. arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.11016.

Barsalou, L.W. (2003). Situated simulation in the human conceptual system. Language and Cognitive Processes, 18, 513-562.

Barsalou, L. W. (2008a). Grounded Cognition, Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 617-645.

Barsalou, L. W. (2008b). Grounding Symbolic Operations in the Brain’s Modal Systems. In G. R. Semin & E. R. Smith (Eds.), Embodied Grounding - Social, Cognitive, Affective, and Neuroscientific Approaches. Cambridge University Press.

Barsalou, L. W. (2017). Cognitively Plausible Theories of Concept Composition. In J.A. Hampton & Y. Winter. (Eds.), Compositionality and Concpets in Linguistics and Psychology, Language, Cognition, and Mind 3, (pp. 9-30). Springer, Cham.

Bringmann, L. F., Elmer, T., & Eronen, M. I. (2022). Back to basics: The importance of conceptual clarification in psychological science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(4), 340-346.

Chan, R. C., Shum, D., Toulopoulou, T., & Chen, E. Y. (2008). Assessment of executive functions: Review of instruments and identification of critical issues. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 23, 201-216.

Chermahini, S. A., & Hommel, B. (2010). The (b) link between creativity and dopamine: spontaneous eye blink rates predict and dissociate divergent and convergent thinking. Cognition, 115(3), 458-465.

Chung, S. H., Su, Y. F., & Su, S. W. (2012). The impact of cognitive flexibility on resistance to organizational change. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 40(5), 735-745.

Cragg, L., & Chevalier, N. (2012). The processes underlying flexibility in childhood. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 209-232.

Diamond, A. (2006). The early development of executive functions. In E. Bialystok & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), Lifespan cognition: Mechanisms of change (pp. 70-95). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Dietrich, A., & Kanso, R. (2010). A review of EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies of creativity and insight. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 822–848.

Eronen, M. I., & Bringmann, L. F. (2021). The theory crisis in psychology: How to move forward. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(4), 779-788.

Gallese, V., & Lakoff, G. (2005). The brain’s concepts: The role of the sensory-motor system in conceptual knowledge. Cognitive neuropsychology, 22(3-4), 455-479.

Glăveanu, V. P. (2011). Children and creativity: A most (un) likely pair?. Thinking skills and creativity, 6(2), 122-131.

Hollenstein, T. (2015). This time, it’s real: Affective flexibility, time scales, feedback loops, and the regulation of emotion. Emotion Review, 7, 308-315.

Hunt, M. (2007). The Story of Psychology. Anchor Books, NY.

Ionescu, T. (2007). “I can put it there too!” - Flexible object categorization in preschool children and the factors that can act upon it. Cognitie, Creier, Comportament/ Cognition, Brain, Behavior, 11, 809-829.

Ionescu, T. (2012). Exploring the nature of cognitive flexibility. New Ideas in Psychology, 30, 190-200.

Ionescu, T. (2014). Copiii altfel - Trasee specifice de dezvoltare cognitivă: O analiză critică. Presa Universitară Clujeană.

Ionescu, T. (2017a). The Variability-Stability-Flexibility Pattern: A Possible Key to Understanding the Flexibility of the Human Mind. Review of General Psychology, 21, 123-131.

Ionescu, T. (2017b). When children succeed in chamging their responses: Insights from three versions of a flexible categorization task. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2017.1333957.

Ionescu, T. (2017c). When Is a Cognitive System Flexible? The Variability-Stability-Flexibility Pattern on the Way to Novel Solutions. Avant, VIII, Special Issue, 253-259.

Ionescu, T., & Vasc, D. (2014). Embodied cognition: Challenges for psychology and education. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 128, 275-280.

Ionescu, T., & Glava, A. (2015). Embodied learning: Connecting psychology, education, and the world. Studia UBB Psychol.-Paed., LX, 2, 5-17.

Ionescu, V. (1993). Dicţionar latin-român. Ed. Orizonturi.

Kalbitzer, J., Frokjaer, V. G., Erritzoe, D., Svarer, C., Cumming, P., Nielsen, F. Å., ... Kringelbach, M. L. (2009). The personality trait openness is related to cerebral 5-HTT levels. Neuroimage, 45, 280-285.

Kleibeuker, S. W., De Dreu, C. K., & Crone, E. A. (2013). The development of creative cognition across adolescence: distinct trajectories for insight and divergent thinking. Developmental science, 16(1), 2-12.

Levin, M. E., Haeger, J., Pierce, B., & Cruz, R. A. (2017). Evaluating an adjunctive mobile app to enhance psychological flexibility in acceptance and commitment therapy. Behavior Modification, 41(6), 846-867.

Naigles, L. R., Hoff, E., & Vear, D. (2009). Flexibility in early verb use: Evidence from a multiple-n diary study. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 74(2), Serial No. 293.

Overton, W. E. (2015). Process and Relational-Developmental Systems. In R. M. Lerner (Series Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science, (pp. 9–62). Hoboken, NJ.

Parasuraman, R. (2000). The Attentive Brain: Issues and Prospects. In R. Parasuraman (Ed.), The Attentive Brain, MIT Press.

Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1980). Computation and cognition: issues in the foundations of cognitive science. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 111-169.

Simonton, D. K. (2016). Creativity, Automaticity, Irrationality, Fortuity, Fantasy, and Other Contingencies: An Eightfold Response Typology. Review of General Psychology, 20, 194-204.

Smith, L. B. (2005). Emerging Ideas About Categories. In L. Gershkoff-Stowe & D. H. Rakison (Eds.), Buiding Object Categories in Developmental Time, (pp. 159-173), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., NJ.

Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9,625-636.

Ziegler, A., Stoeger, H., & Vialle, W. (2012). Giftedness and gifted education: The need for a paradigm change. Gifted Child Quarterly, 56, 194-197.

Downloads

Published

2022-12-05

How to Cite

IONESCU, T. (2022). CONCEPTS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND THE NEED TO CRITICALLY REFLECT ON THEM. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Psychologia-Paedagogia, 67(2), 89–98. https://doi.org/10.24193/subbpsyped.2022.2.04

Issue

Section

Articles