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This I Have Learned from Over 40 Years of Personality Research
Author(s) -
Epstein Seymour
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1997.tb00527.x
Subject(s) - psychology , personality , clinical psychology , social psychology
During the over 40 years in which I have conducted personality research, I have had a number of insights about the research process that I thought would be worth sharing: an awareness of the human side of science; lessons from the person‐situation debate; lessons from comparing research on highly ego‐involving natural events, such as sport parachuting, with laboratory analogues; the realization of what is wrong with the concept of the Freudian unconscious and what should be done to replace it; and awareness of pervasive biases in the journal‐reviewing process. Perhaps the one most general lesson I have learned is that the advancement of psychology as a cumulative, integrative science is hampered not so much by its conceptual complexity as by the difficulty of humankind to view itself objectively, with honesty, courage, and a willingness to surrender illusions.