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Dealing with Wicked Problems: Conducting a Causal Layered Analysis of Complex Social Psychological Issues
Author(s) -
Bishop Brian J.,
Dzidic Peta L.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/s10464-013-9611-5
Subject(s) - health psychology , interpretation (philosophy) , sociology , epistemology , community psychology , qualitative research , social issues , psychology , management science , social psychology , computer science , social science , public health , engineering , medicine , political science , philosophy , nursing , law , programming language
Causal layered analysis (CLA) is an emerging qualitative methodology adopted in the discipline of planning as an approach to deconstruct complex social issues. With psychologists increasingly confronted with complex, and “wicked” social and community issues, we argue that the discipline of psychology would benefit from adopting CLA as an analytical method. Until now, the application of CLA for data interpretation has generally been poorly defined and overwhelming for the novice. In this paper we propose an approach to CLA that provides a method for the deconstruction and analysis of complex social psychological issues. We introduce CLA as a qualitative methodology well suited for psychology, introduce the epistemological foundations of CLA, define a space for it adoption within the discipline, and, outline the steps for conducting a CLA using an applied example.