Main methods in psychosocial research

These methods make it possible to take better account of the effects that society has on people.

Psychosocial research marked a break with the traditions that had dominated scientific thought in psychology and in other disciplines, especially social ones. in psychology and in other disciplines, especially social ones. Among other things, it has made it possible to generate orderly and systematic ways of making scientific knowledge and understanding reality (i.e., research methods), avoiding the classic separation between the individual and society.

In the following, we will review the traditions that have marked psychology as a scientific discipline and describe the concepts of methodology and method, to finally present the main characteristics of psychology research. the main characteristics of psychosocial research, which is close to the critical close to the critical orientations of contemporary thought.

Main traditions of research in psychology

As a scientific discipline, psychology has been part of the traditions and transformations that have historically marked the field of science. The paradigm that has traditionally dominated this field has been the positivist onewhich is based on the idea that there is a reality that can be revealed by means of a specific methodology and method: the hypothetico-deductive method, which offers us the possibility of explaining, predicting and manipulating the functioning of this reality.

Nevertheless (and given that this paradigm is also established through the separation between nature and culture), when trying to explain social phenomena, which did not seem to follow the same patterns as natural phenomena, the hypothetico-deductive method faced some challenges. Many of them were solved through the calculation of probabilities, that is, by predicting future behaviors, taking care that no external factors intervened in the process, or in other words, evaluating those probabilities in an objective, neutral and impartial manner.

Some time later, this paradigm faced new challenges, when through relativistic theory, chaos theory and feminist epistemologies, among other theories of knowledge, it became evident that the position of the researcher is not neutral, but rather a position situated in theIt is a position situated in a body, an experience, a history and a specific context, which inevitably affects the reality under study.

From there, very diverse research methods have emerged that allow taking into account the terrain of experience as a key element, as well as valid and legitimate, in the construction of knowledge.

Methodology or Method? Examples and differences

The concepts of methodology and method are widely used in research and are also often confused or used synonymously. Although there is no single or definitive way to explain them, nor do they necessarily have to be separated, below we offer a proposed definition of both methodology and method, as well as some differences in the models.

Methodology: placing the tools somewhere

By the term "methodology" we generally refer to the theoretical perspective that frames the procedure or system that we will follow during an investigation.. For example, the traditions of contemporary and Western science are usually divided into two major frameworks: qualitative methodology and quantitative methodology.

The quantitative methodology is the one that has been especially valued in the scientific field and is based on the hypothetical-deductive method that seeks to establish probabilities and predictions appealing to the impartiality of the researcher.

On the other hand, qualitative methodology has gained ground in the area of the social sciences and in the critical and in critical orientations because it allows the elaboration of understandings of a reality by recovering the experience of those who are involved in that reality, including the researcher him/herself. Based on this, the concept of responsibility and ethics in research has taken on fundamental importance.

In addition, based on this, a methodological-inductive model was configured, which does not seek to explain a reality but to understand it; which implies that an action or a phenomenon is not only described, but that by describing it, it is interpreted. In addition, they are interpreted by a person or a group of persons situated in a specific context, which means that this interpretation is not free of judgments. that this interpretation is not free of judgments; it is an interpretation elaborated in correspondence with the characteristics of that context.It is an interpretation elaborated in correspondence with the characteristics of that context.

Both quantitative and qualitative methodology have criteria of scientific rigor that make their proposals valid in the field of science and can be shared among different people.

Method: the tool and the instructive

On the other hand, a "method" is an orderly and systematic way we use to produce something; therefore, in the field of research, "method" usually refers more specifically to the research technique used to produce something. to the research technique that is used and the way in which it is used..

The method then is what we use to collect information that we are going to analyze and that will later allow us to offer a set of results, reflections, conclusions, proposals, etc. An example of method can be interviews or experiments that are used to collect and group a set of data, such as statistical figures, texts, public documents.

Both the methodology and the research method are defined on the basis of the questions we want to answer with our research, i.e., according to the problems we have set ourselves.

An approach to psychosocial research

As we have seen, scientific knowledge has traditionally been produced on the basis of a significant dissociation between the psychic and the social, which has given rise to the now classic debates between nature-culture, individual-society, innate-unbornness, and the social.individual-society, innate-learned, etc.

In fact, if we go a little further, we can see that it is also based on the Cartesian mind-body binomial, which has been translated into the divisions between subject-object and subjectivity-objectivity; where it is objectivity that is often overvalued in the scientific field: reason over experience, a reason that as we have said before is presented as neutral, but which is established among a multiplicity of norms, practices and relationships.

Thus, the term psychosocial refers to the connection between psychic and psychic elements. the connection between psychic elements and social factors that shape identities, practices and relationships. that shape identities, subjectivities, relationships, norms of interaction, etc. It is a theoretical perspective and a methodological stance that attempts to undo the false divisions between the social and the psychic.

The critical perspective in psychosocial research

In some contexts, the psychosocial perspective has come very close to critical theories of science (those that pay special attention to the effects of science in the reproduction of social inequalities).

In other words, a psychosocial perspective that is also critical would not only seek to understand or interpret a reality, but would also seek to to locate the relations of power and domination that shape that reality in order to generate crises and transformations. in order to generate crises and transformations.

To incorporate a critical perspective that has to do with reflecting in order to promote emancipatory action; to make alliances from detecting the power relations that hold and at the same time open certain possibilities of action; to make an explicit critique of the relations of domination assuming that the act of research affects and impacts the concrete terrain being studied.

Examples of methods in psychosocial research

Methods in psychosocial research have been categorized under different names for ease of use, rigor and reliability. However, by taking into consideration how the researcher affects the reality he/she is investigating, and that the methods are not neutral either, they may share some of the parameters. In other words, they are flexible methods.

In this sense, any orderly and systematic way of collecting information to understand a phenomenon with the purpose of blurring the boundaries between the psychic and the social, could be a psychosocial research method.

Some examples of methods that have been particularly relevant because they have made it possible to bring into play what has been described above are discourse analysis, mobile drifts in research, biographical methods such as life histories, and the use ofautoethnography, ethnography, and the now classic in-depth interviews.

There are also some methods that are more participatory, such as participatory action research and narrative techniques, where the main objective is that knowledge is co-constructed between the researcher and the participants, thus generating a horizontal relationship during the research process and thus questioning the barrier between two practices that have been understood as separate: research and intervention.

Bibliographical references:

• Biglia, B. & Bonet-Martí, J. (2009). The construction of narratives as a psychosocial research method. Shared writing practices. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(1) [Online]. Retrieved April 11, 2018. Available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/6521202/2666.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1523443283&Signature=PdsP0jW0bLXvReFWLhqyIr3qREk%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DNarrative_Construction_as_a_Psychosocial.pdf
• Pujal i Llombart, M. (2004). La identidad. Pp: 83-138. In Ibáñez, T. (Ed.). Introduction to social psychology. Editorial UOC: Barcelona.
• Íñiguez, R. (2003). Social psychology as critique: continuity, stability and effervescence three decades after the crisis. Interamerican journal of psychology, 37(2): 221-238.