Contextualizing Psychology

Critical Perspectives and Person-Oriented Approaches
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-009-37410-1
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 302 Seiten

Much contemporary psychology is characterized by a natural science epistemology that overlooks the richness of human experience. This book offers a timely and necessary critique and emphasizes a conception of human beings as persons embedded in relationships, cultural groups, and historical contexts. Eva Magnusson and Jeanne Marecek provide strategies for critical reflective scrutiny of contemporary psychological theories and practices. Using 'styles of thinking' as one of their conceptual tools, they investigate whether, and how, theories, research methods, and debates across subfields such as cognition, language, and psychopathology take people's situatedness into account. The book gives readers practical guidance for conceptual analysis, and a set of questions for scrutinizing other subfields and practices. It also describes research methods and projects based on a view of humans as situated persons. The book offers both a philosophical foundation and a hands-on guide to a psychology with persons at its center.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Magnusson, Eva

Marecek, Jeanne

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Finding one's way around psychology; 2. Thinking styles in psychology; 3. Culture, communities, and persons; 4. Minds in psychology; 5. Human brains and psychology; 6. Thinking persons; 7. Language and psychology; 8. Social and historical perspectives on psychological suffering; 9. Critical perspectives on psychologists' research practices; 10. Disagreements and debates in psychology's history; 11. Contemporary debates among psychologists; 12. Explanations in psychology; 13. Being a discerning reader of psychology; 14. Studying the psychology of persons: methods, assumptions, and commitments.

Über Autor(innen)

Magnusson, Eva
Eva Magnusson is Professor Emerita of Psychology, Umeå University, Sweden, and former Head of Research at the Nordic Institute for Gender Research in Oslo. Eva has published on qualitative research and the psychology of gender, and has served on the editorial board of Feminism & Psychology and NORA (Nordic Journal of Gender Research).

Marecek, Jeanne
Jeanne Marecek is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Swarthmore College, USA. A cultural psychologist trained in clinical psychology, Jeanne has served on the editorial team of Feminism & Psychology since 2007. The American Psychological Association has awarded her the Carolyn Wood Sherif Award (2017) and the Theodore Sarbin Award (2022).