This I have learned from over 40 years of personality research.
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.
Epstein
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Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003, USA. sepstein@psych.umass.edu
D001007:Anxiety; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D006801:Humans; D010551:Personality; D010552:Personality Assessment; D012106:Research; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology