title: Psychological science in a postmodern context.
abstract: Postmodern scholarship poses significant challenges to pivotal assumptions of individual knowledge, objectivity, and truth. In their place, an emphasis is placed on the communal construction of knowledge, objectivity as a relational achievement, and language as a pragmatic medium through which local truths are constituted. Although these developments in understanding may seem opposed to psychological science, they are not. Rather, they invite a new range of questions about the potentials of traditional research. These questions are vitally concerned with the significance of such inquiry in cultural life. More importantly, this emerging view of psychological science opens new and exciting vistas of theoretical, methodological, and practical significance. Increasing manifestations of movement in these directions suggest the possibility of profound change in the profession.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA. kgergen1@swarthmore.edu
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Gergen
mesh_terms: D018864:Cultural Diversity; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D007207:Individuation; D010684:Philosophy; D011364:Professional Practice / Q000639:trends; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011584:Psychology / Q000639:trends*; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000639:trends; D014481:United States