Preface	6
	Contents	8
	About the Author	11
	Chapter 1: Methodology as Foundation for Discovery	12
	The Goal: Search for Universal Principles	13
	The “Blind Spots” in Psychological Epistemology	14
	A Methodological Need: Preserving the Whole	16
	Basic Axiomatics for Human Psychology	16
	The Principle of Parsimony	18
	Chapter 2: General Epistemology of Open Systems	20
	Organisms Exist Only as Open Systems	21
	Making Sense of Living Organisms Without Vitalist Assumptions	23
	The Borrowed Concept—Equifinality	24
	The Steady State (Fliessgleichgewicht)	24
	General Idea of Development: Hierarchical Reorganization in Time	25
	What Would Be Different in Open-System Methodology	27
	The Meaning of Objectivity	29
	The Meaning of “the Data”	30
	Conclusion: What Is Needed for Methodology?	30
	Chapter 3: Methodology in the New Key: The Methodology Cycle	31
	The Role of Intuition in Science	38
	Chapter 4: Frames of Reference	41
	Summary: Psychology Has Been Using Inadequate Reference Frames	46
	The Individual-Ecological Reference Frame	46
	The Individual-Socioecological Reference Frame	47
	Example: The SELF as an Open System (elaborating George Herbert Mead)	48
	Conclusion: Needed—Consistency Between Basic Assumptions and Reference Frames	49
	Chapter 5: The Role of Methods in the Methodology Cycle	50
	Studying Personality: Relocating Focus from Responses to Responding Processes	50
	Taking a Dynamic View on Seemingly Static Methods: What Is a “Personality Test” Item?	51
	Conditional-Genetic Analysis	55
	Methods of Re- and Pre-construction (Post-factum and Pre-factum)	57
	How Do We Cover the Four Infinities?	57
	Method Construction in Open-Systemic World: Exploring Relations Between Infinities	58
	Externalizing the Flow of Thinking: “Thinking Aloud” and “Walking Along”	60
	The Trajectory Equifinality Approach (TEA/TEM)	63
	Conclusion: Methodology as Movement	66
	Chapter 6: Introspection as the Basic Method in Psychological Science	67
	Methods Capitalizing on Process Orientation	67
	Introspection as a Method to Link Proactive and Retroactive Movements	69
	Rating Scales: Trivialized Introspection	70
	Conclusion: Why Is Introspection the Central Method for Psychology?	72
	Chapter 7: Methods of Extrospection: Interview, Questionnaire, Experiment	73
	Three Techniques in Extrospection: Interview, Questionnaire, Experiment	73
	Intention to Enter into Research Relation: “Contacting Participants”	74
	Interview as a Method: Coordinating Perspectives	75
	Interview Delegated to Fixed Messages: A Questionnaire	76
	Experiment as Guided Observation	77
	Process-Focused Methods: Utilizing the Guidance of the Mind	82
	Reconstructive Memory and Conversational Reconstruction Techniques	83
	Directing the Extrospective Process: Story Completion Methods	85
	Conclusion: From Outcome-Focused to Process-Analytic Methods	87
	Chapter 8: Generalization from Single Instances	88
	The Base: Generalization Through Abduction	89
	Fictional Characters as Data	90
	The Real Nature of Fictions	91
	Chapter 9: General Conclusion: Research as Knowledge-­Constrained Semiosis	93
	Scientific Knowledge as Strategically Constrained Semiosis	94
	Research as Knowledge-Constrained and Knowledge-­Constraining Activity	95
	References	96
	Commentary 1 Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: How Decontextualized Research Obscures the Very Phenomena They Aim to Study	102
	An Example	102
	The “Magic” of Measurement	104
	Images of Reality	105
	Dynamic Process Methodology	107
	The Science of Single Cases	108
	References	109
	Commentary 2 Toward a Renewal of Methodology – The Contribution of Psychoanalysis	110
	1	110
	2	111
	3	113
	4	114
	5	115
	6	116
	References	116
	Index	118