Ruben Arslan (Psychological Research Methods, Witten/Herdecke University)
»A fragmented field? Scientists can hardly stand on each other's shoulders if they cannot manage to meet on common ground«
If we conceived of the constructs and concepts studied in behavioral science as a map, we would find that it is highly fragmented and directions are hard to come by. Fragmentation has worsened, not decreased, as the field has grown. Partly, this happens because we have too many reverse Columbuses, who, in search of prestige, set out to find a new continent, but just end up renaming India. But partly, we face a real, solvable search problem when trying to connect our fuzzy constructs and flexible measures. In psychology, language and nowadays large language models can help us put the fragments together. But unlike subjective self-reports, individual differences are not limited to human animals, nor is conceptual confusion. Common standards could help us connect our insights and improve our ability to discover the genetic causes of differences.
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