Subjectivity and knowledge: The formation of situated generalization in psychological research

Based on contemporary debates about the possibilities and limits of scientific generalization and efforts of epistemological renewal, the chapter delineates three major approaches to generalization in psychological research: (1) numerical generalization, generalizing through representative samples, (2) post-generalizing traditions, conceiving generalization not as a decisive goal in scientific work, and (3) situated generalization, generalizing through subjectivity-in-context. The chapter argues for a theoretical and methodological vocabulary which systematically includes the subjective dimension of human life in psychological inquiry and situates the processes of generalization in persons’ common, social, cultural, and material practices of everyday living. Reconsidering the challenge of psychology to include human subjectivity and everyday life in the production of scientific knowledge, it shows how psychologies of human subjectivity permeate the history of psychology from the very beginning. Within these traditions significant perspectives contributing to the formation of a situated generalization are identified, and finally summaries of the chapters of the book are presented.