Past midnight yesterday, just before watching sliding doors, ww suddenly brought up the IndigNation talk in August.
She asked… aren’t there always multiple perspectives?
Yes… and No.
It depends on what you are talking about.
Some things are established.
For example: gay people are capable of sustaining long-lasting relationships. Or that homosexuality is not a mental illness.
Some things have multiple perspectives/theories.
For example: In counseling, different counselors are trained in different perspectives. The increasing popular way is the eclectic approach, where several therapies are combined.
How do people establish certain details and move on?
When you look at the general research field and studies done down the years, if results are fairly consistent across participant samples and methodologies, then things are quite clear.
Sometimes, there are interesting new studies that people do. When these studies are presented, the presenter will usually say “it was found in this study that blar blar blar”. And every study has limitations depending on the nature of its sample, design and way of analysis. However, to present all these caveats in a short presentation is impossible. People usually spend 30-50 minutes just talking about one study of their own when we have seminars. So, in a short presentation, only critical information are presented. For example, in dating fluctuations (where fluctuations in levels of relationship satisfaction are more likely to result in a break up whether it’s increasing or decreasing in levels of satisfaction), the limitation i perceived as critical, and hence presented, is- participants are tertiary students in the first 3 months of dating.
Sometimes, it’s exasperating trying to explain how psychological studies work, how theories are born, discussing what’s controversial and what’s no longer controversial.
Also read: Skewed representations?
