Why are there different systems

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Are different systems in psychology just a refelection of different topics of research interest or do they represent complete models of psychological functioning?

-- Barry Poole (bazzap@hotmail.com), August 27, 2002

Answers

It could be even more complicated than that. Perhaps they reflect underlying personality differences that reflect underlying neurological and genetic differences--something has to account for the fact that from the beginning of time humans have recognized that "reasonable people disagree." They may reflect major world-view differences related to epistemology and ontology. They may reflect simply the different life experiences of the psychologists who developed them. Many were certainly intended to be complete models of psychological functioning, but whether those aims were met remains a matter of historical judgment. Generally systems intended to be complete models are insensitive to the problem of individual differences. You might answer this by looking at each of the systems and answering your own questions: what research problems are behind this system? what questions was it designed to answer? How well does it address a rangeof issues? Are there areas it does not address?

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), August 28, 2002.

Undoubtedly both. But perhaps we currently know so little about how the mind is related to the brain, on the one hand, and to society, on the other, that were are still merely at the "likely guesses" stage of its development.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), August 28, 2002.

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