Self-Observation in the Social Sciences by Clegg Joshua W.;

Author:Clegg, Joshua W.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-05-17T04:00:00+00:00

What Is Phenomenology?

Though admittedly difficult to define in manner that will meet with universal agreement,2 in its most general sense, phenomenology is “the study of human experience and the way things present themselves to us in and through such experience” (Sokolowski 2000, 2). As such, the phenomenological approach, Keen (1975) states, “seeks to meet phenomena on their own terms and not to press them into the mold of preconceptions” (41). Thus, rather than measuring the behavior of human beings as exhibited in controlled laboratory environments, or interpreting the unconscious interplay of inferred psychic entities, or tracking the mechanical operations of complex cognitive information processing systems, as do many researchers in mainstream psychology, phenomenological psychologists seek to study the meaningful experience of human beings as encountered and reported by them in the course of everyday living (see, e.g., Fuller 1990; Giorgi and Giorgi 2008; Kruger 1988; Smith and Osborn 2008).

As a species of applied phenomenological philosophy, phenomenological psychology concerns itself with “the world as we encounter it in everyday experience, the world in which we pursue our goals and objectives, the scene of all our activities” (Fuller 1990, 24). The world, in this phenomenological sense, consists of “all items and objects which present themselves in prescientific experience and as they present themselves prior to their scientific interpretation in the specific modern sense” (Gurwitsch 1974, 17). Accordingly, phenomenology attends to “the world of everyday meanings, the world of malls, tulips, and lakes” (Fuller 1990, 24). Thus, Keen (1975) argues, “phenomenological psychology seeks to articulate explicitly the implicit structure and meaning of human experience. In order to carry out this task, we must describe experience” (19). And, he continues, “in trying to describe the overall structure of experience we must look to experience itself. . . . This lived experience must be our guide in understanding other people and what things mean to them” (Keen 1975, 21). In its most general sense, then, phenomenology reflects a basic philosophical commitment to phenomena as they appear in experience, in all of their contextual specificity and experiential variability.

For these reasons, phenomenological psychologists have traditionally relied on self-reports and first-person observations about meaningful experience. That is, phenomenological psychologists have typically employed qualitative rather than quantitative approaches in gathering their data, most often by inviting participants to engage with them in a critically reflective dialogue about very specific sorts of experiences that the participants have had. This research dialogue usually occurs in the context of extensive and probing face-to-face interviews, but can also include critical analysis of one’s own experience, collecting and analyzing the written narrative accounts of others, and/or participating in cooperative groups wherein researchers and participants collaboratively examine both their own experiences and the research process itself (see, e.g., Fischer 2006; Halling et al. 1994; Kvale and Brinkmann 2009; Pollio et al. 1997). Whatever the specific parameters of the methodological approach taken, research participants are invited to describe their experience as it is experienced and in as much detail as possible, with particular attention paid to the temporal unfolding of the experience in its social and physical context.

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