In Chapter 9, Critical Perspectives on Psychologists’ Research Practices, the topic is psychology as a research discipline, and what can be learned from intradisciplinary debates about its research methods. As an example we use the debates about the recent failures to replicate a number of research findings in psychology. These debates can be seen as a sign of psychologists’ commitment to establish and maintain secure foundations of their research methods. Some suggested explanations of the replication failures are: “p-hacking” and other questionable research practices (“QRPs”); unreflective and misguided uses of conventional methods, especially statistics; and lack of conceptual and epistemological knowledge among psychologists. We then look closely at the assumptions that form the basis of the psychological research practices that were implicated in the replication debates and discuss whether some of those assumptions are problematic.

Chapter 11, Contemporary Debates among Psychologists, covers some issues that are currently being debated in psychology. One message of the chapter is that psychologists should debate foundational issues – debates are necessary in a scholarly endeavor. The first section describes methodological circles: When a research method has built in assumptions about that which is studied, and therefore always produces data that confirm these assumptions. We then discuss the logical problems of research that uses group averages as a basis for formulating theories about individuals. Then we look into the uses of “variables” in psychology, and discuss problems accompanying some of these uses. The widespread practice of statistical significance testing is the next issue we discuss. It has been increasingly criticized over several decades but has remained in place. We end by discussing two ways of understanding and using the concept “concept” in psychology and recommend one of these ways.

Chapter 7, Language and Psychology, begins with a review of theories about the evolution of human language, focusing on biolinguistic and usage-based theories. The body of the chapter is devoted to the study of contemporary language use: How people use words to do things, usually things that involve other people. Such study is often based on the so-called action tradition in language studies. It focuses on language use as arising in people’s joint activities, including how meaning is typically negotiated and determined through both linguistic and nonlinguistic social interactions. Central concepts in these studies are joint activities, coordination, interactive repair, common ground, and social accountability. The chapter also contains a discussion of two ways of conceiving of how words get their meanings: the classical view and the anthropological view. After a discussion of different styles of thinking about language, we end the chapter by presenting suggestions for the psychological study of people’s talk and language use in social situations.

In Chapter 4, Minds in Psychology, the topic is the concept of “mind” and its uses in psychology and philosophy throughout history and today. A reason why it is important to investigate how “mind” is understood in psychology is that in order to evaluate psychological research, one needs a clear image of the conception of mind that underpins that research. We describe the historical background of the concept itself, as well as changes over time in how the word “mind” has been used, and some differences across languages and cultures today. We identify four historical and contemporary thinking styles – that is, different ways of conceiving of “mind.” We discuss the issues and problems connected with each of these styles.

We begin Chapter 12, Explanations in Psychology, with a description of psychological phenomena and the temptations to think of them as “things.” We then discuss whether psychological categories should be seen as natural or human-made. Then we look at psychological explanations of people’s behavior and experiences and describe contextualized explanations focusing on reasons and interpretations, causal explanations, and abduction, sometimes called inference to the best explanation. We describe and discuss the most important features of these explanatory strategies. We look at some of the limitations of causal explanations built on reductionist assumptions, and the seemingly almost inevitable consequence of assuming determinism when using such explanations. We also discuss explanatory strategies that tempt psychologists to reify psychological phenomena such as behaviors or experiences. This means imagining that such phenomena are “entities” inside people’s minds or brains, even though one only has access to the observed behaviors or recounted experiences.

Chapter 10, Disagreements and Debates in Psychology’s History, elucidates how theories and practices in psychology are influenced by historical and cultural circumstances and modes of thought. First we look back to the nineteenth century, when some psychologists were influenced by evolutionary theory and adopted the eugenic framework, with ideas of selective breeding of “good” types of humans. We then give a brief account of psychology and evolutionary theory today. This is followed by a discussion of the history of psychological measurement, and of how, eventually, a wide-ranging imperative to use quantitative methods was established in the discipline. Next is the history of operational definitions. We then take a short tour of the histories of psychology’s words – where they come from and how they change, and the importance of being aware of the changes. In the final subsection, the topic is the history of psychological theories and practices regarding women and gender, and the debates about them.

In Chapter 1, Finding One’s Way around Psychology, we introduce the two aims of our book. The first aim is to introduce readers to a critically reflective approach to learning psychology. This approach provides strategies for assessing whether psychological theories and schools fulfill the requirements of the book’s second aim. The second aim is to present the view of human beings as socially and culturally situated persons that permeates the book. Psychologists who adopt this view build their work on the insight that because people’s living conditions and cultural contexts vary across the world and across time, one should not expect to find any single view of humans, or any one fact about psychological properties, to be always and everywhere valid. These psychologists are skeptical of theories that build on universalist assumptions, and therefore also of psychology’s earlier claims about the universal validity and applicability of “Western” psychological research, theories, and practices.

Chapter 6, Thinking Persons, begins with a review of how thinking has been conceptualized throughout history. We then present two contemporary ideas of how to think about thinking. According to the first idea, thinking is a wholly internal activity that takes place in the brain. The brain is seen as a computational and representational system, in analogy to digital computers. Connected to this view are debates about how thoughts and other mental activities and properties can be represented in people’s minds or brains. According to the second idea, thinking takes place in an interactive and dynamic system that includes the individual’s body and surroundings. The two ideas are based in different definitions of “thinking.” Internalism sees it as something that could only occur inside a person’s brain. Contextualism sees it as something that may include tools, other people, and other things outside the person. The chapter ends with a comparison of how these ideas about thinking fit with a view of human beings as socially contextualized persons.