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Transcending common sense in psychological theorizing: A developmental perspective
Author(s) -
VALSINER JAAN
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1986.tb01196.x
Subject(s) - psychology , common sense , perspective (graphical) , social psychology , meaning (existential) , similarity (geometry) , interpersonal communication , epistemology , intelligibility (philosophy) , cognitive psychology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science , image (mathematics) , psychotherapist
The necessity for transcendence of any particular system of common sense in psychologists' theorizing is reiterated in the process of analyzing Smedslund's response to the author's previous (Valsiner, 1985) critical analysis of the role of common sense in psychology. It is emphasized that the ways of how personally unique construction of meaning in individuals' ontogenies proceed are directed by social canalization, which guarantees sufficient (but not absolute) similarity in persons' individual thinking and acting. Such similarity forms the basis for intelligibility of interpersonal communication. A developmental perspective can overcome two opposite traditions in non‐developmental psychologies which either disregard common sense, or make it the criterion of adequacy of thinking towards which psychological theories should strive. In contrast, it is suggested that common sense be studied in conjunction with research on psychological phenomena for which it serves as their context, and that generalizations about psychological phenomena retain information about the common‐sense frames of the phenomena.