心理学质性研究：历史、现状和展望

Qualitative Research in Psychology: History, Current Status, and Prospect

心理学质性研究具有漫长的过去,却只有短暂的历史。心理学自诞生起就具有质性研究传统,但被主流所忽视。从组织机构、出版渠道和研究成果方面看,当前国内外心理学质性研究的发展态势暗示质性研究传统正在回归到主流当中。尽管仍存在误解和急功近利等众多问题和困难需要克服,但是心理学质性研究方法在研究复杂心理现象和产生新的概念、新的理论方面展现了潜力。心理学质性研究的复兴正使心理学处于一个多元化转向的阶段。

This article reviews the historical background, current situation, potentials and challenges of qualitative research in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology exists a long past, but only has a short history. The qualitative approach has been a tradition since the beginning of psychology. Many prominent psychologists such as Freud, Wundt, James, Piaget, and Bruner employed qualitative methods to establish their well-known theories. However, this history was neglected by mainstream psychology for a long period of time. Most of the psychological textbooks emphasized quantitative approach and results, but they did not mention the fact that many theories were qualitatively generated from qualitative data. Qualitative reports have been mostly rejected by mainstream journals. However, the recent development of institutions, publishing outlets and research publications that aims at facilitating qualitative research implies the returning of qualitative traditions. Psychological institutions for qualitative research have been established in Germany, England, the USA and China in recent decades. Several academic journals for qualitative reports also emerged in recent years. Qualitative research has gained momentum in most areas of Western psychology, such as narrative psychology, developmental psychology, counseling psychology, positive psychology and sports psychology. The development of qualitative research in China is represented by the establishment of related institutions and is featured by the progress of research in life narrative and psychobiography. Scholars from both sides of Taiwan Straits set up the Society for Life Narrative and Psychobiography and hold academic meetings regularly. Also, the first academic journal for psychobiography around the world has been found in 2014. Qualitative methods are also used by Chinese psychologists in studying the psychology of personality, social phenomenon, counseling and sports. The nature of qualitative methods allows researchers to investigate these areas in the context of Chinese culture and to identify special concepts and distinctive features. Still, some problems remain. Qualitative research has been misunderstood to be a lack of standardized criterion in evaluating its quality. Nevertheless, the efforts to provide a set of principles for evaluating qualitative studies have been undergoing and a unified framework for designing and reviewing qualitative psychology research has been proposed in recent years by APA. Another potential risk is proceduralism, in which qualitative research practice such as interviewing has been guided to follow a "standardized" procedure in order to increase researchers’ productivity. Such a practice engenders the flexibility of qualitative methods. Despite such problems which need to be solved, the qualitative approach in psychology has shown its potentials in studying the complex psychological phenomenon and in generating new concepts or theories. Qualitative methods have helped Chinese psychologists in identifying particular personality dimensions of Chinese people, forming the special theoretical framework in the field of social psychology for issues including attachment and trust, providing new insight into the practice of clinical therapy. The qualitative traditions in psychology seem to have been recognized by a lot of psychologists and are contributing to many areas of psychology. In general, rejuvenating qualitative psychology represents a period of turning to pluralism in the field of psychology.