Using philosophy of science to explore the foundations of our field

Many I-O psychologists are well versed in a wide range of theories, research methods, and statistical techniques. But how many have explored the philosophical assumptions on which these theories, methods, and techniques are based? This is a critical question: If we are unaware of the philosophical foundations of our field, our work may be laden with philosophical baggage we are unaware of.

Philosophy of science can help us develop a deeper understanding of the core beliefs, fundamental logic, and implicit values that underpin our field. In this section, I will provide a brief overview of what philosophy of science is. Then I will review the major philosophies of science that have been most influential since our field emerged at the start of the 20^th century. Finally, I will explore how these philosophies of science have shaped our field over the past 120 years.

A brief overview of philosophy of science

Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy that examines and evaluates the basic assumptions, inherent suppositions, and accepted practices of science. According to Peter Machamer, an American philosopher and historian of science, “Philosophy of science takes science and subjects it to critical thought” (Reference Machamer1998, p. 2). What is science? What purpose does it serve, and what contributions does it make to society? Where do theories come from? What is the basis for truth? Why do scientists believe some things and not others? What methods do scientists use to make their claims and draw their conclusions? These are the kinds of questions that philosophers have explored for centuries. But although the historical roots of philosophy of science are deep—extending back to Plato and Aristotle—its emergence as a formal academic discipline occurred just in the last century. The influential works of Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, and Thomas Kuhn helped establish the field and demonstrate the value of utilizing philosophy to understand science.

Using philosophical principles, scientists and practitioners can gain many important insights. For example, philosophy of science can provide a historical perspective on the evolution of scientific thought, theories, and trends. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Reference Kuhn1962), Kuhn argued that scientific knowledge and practice are shaped by paradigms—common worldviews shared by members of a scientific community. Philosophy can be used to explore how different paradigms have influenced the development of scientific fields over time. In addition to providing historical perspective, philosophy also provides a framework for evaluating the choices that researchers and practitioners make as they do their work. All scientific endeavors are based on philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality (i.e., ontology), the process of knowledge building (i.e., epistemology), and the essence of what is right and wrong (i.e., axiology; Patton, Reference Patton2002). These philosophical assumptions influence the questions that researchers and practitioners raise, the methods they use to study those questions, and the conclusions they reach (Chilisa & Kawulich, Reference Chilisa, Kawulich, Wagner, Kawulich and Garner2012). Knowledge of ontology, epistemology, and axiology can help scientists and practitioners engage in intellectual debates, explore theoretical or methodological disagreements, and discuss competing schools of thought. And philosophy can foster self-reflection, reduce blind spots, and promote new ways of thinking. “A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background,” Albert Einstein wrote to philosopher of science Robert Thornton, “gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his (sic) generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth” (see Howard, Reference Howard2005, p. 34).

Three major 20^th century philosophies of science

I-O psychology’s origins can be traced back to the late 19^th century, when the field first started to emerge as an independent area of study (Koppes Bryan, Reference Koppes Bryan2021). As the field developed over the course of the 20^th century, psychology, sociology, and other social sciences were shaped by three major philosophies of science: positivism, post-positivism, and constructionism.

• Positivism. Positivism was the dominant philosophy of science for the first half of the 20^th century. Based on the 19^th century philosophical works of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill—and further developed by the Vienna Circle, a group of scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers who met regularly in the 1920s and 1930s—positivism posits a series of logical suppositions that can be found at the core of many scientific fields, including psychology. As its point of departure, positivism assumes that a single, universal, sensible reality—guided by immutable natural laws—exists in the world (Guba & Lincoln, Reference Guba, Lincoln, Denzin and Lincoln1994). This reality can be discovered, positivists argue, through empirical methods that allow scientists to observe and measure phenomena using experimental and quasi-experimental methods, and then arrive at truth claims based on statistical analysis (Park et al., Reference Park, Konge and Artino2020). Science is considered to be value-free, objective, and dualistic: Scientists and their subject of study are considered to be completely independent (Erciyes, Reference Erciyes2020). Positivist research follows the hypothetico-deductive model, moving from (a) theory and hypothesis formation; to (b) operationalization, experimentation, and hypothesis testing; which ultimately leads to (c) theory refinement and application (Park et al., Reference Park, Konge and Artino2020). Theory and research in this paradigm tend to be reductionist and deterministic (Guba & Lincoln, Reference Guba, Lincoln, Denzin and Lincoln1994; Hesse, Reference Hesse1980). From a positivist perspective, the goal of science is to discover “explanatory associations or causal relationships that ultimately lead to prediction and control of the phenomena in question” (Park et al., Reference Park, Konge and Artino2020, p. 690).

• Post-positivism. In the second half of the 20^th century, a number of prominent scientists, including Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos, started to challenge and critique core aspects of the positivist paradigm (Letourneau & Allen, Reference Letourneau and Allen1999; Tanlaka et al., Reference Tanlaka, Ewashen and King-Shier2019). These critiques led to the emergence of post-positivism, a philosophy of science that has become increasingly popular in various fields of human science—including sociology, anthropology, nursing, and medicine—in recent decades. Like positivism, post-positivism assumes that a single, universal, sensible reality exists. But reality is not fully understandable, post-positivism contends, because human intelligence is limited and subject to biases, whereas reality is vast, complex, and ultimately inscrutable (Guba & Lincoln, Reference Guba, Lincoln, Denzin and Lincoln1994). Ontologically, this contention that reality exists but is not fully apprehendable is known as critical realism (Cook & Campbell, Reference Cook and Campbell1979), and it is different than the naïve realism supposition (i.e., reality exists and can be fully discovered) that positivism asserts. As a result, post-positivism presents an approach to science that differs from that proposed by positivism. For example, post-positivism rejects the notion of value-free inquiry and scientific dualism (Tanlaka et al., Reference Tanlaka, Ewashen and King-Shier2019). Doing good research from a post-positivist perspective requires researchers to recognize their biases and consider the limitations of their theories, methods, and findings. To counter these limitations, post-positivism calls for a pluralistic approach to scientific knowledge-building (Houts et al., Reference Houts, Cook and Shadish1986; Phillips, Reference Phillips and Guba1990). Known as critical multiplism, this central tenet of post-positivism posits that the best way to investigate research questions is to conduct multiple studies and use multiple methodologies—including both quantitative and qualitative research—to surface common findings (Guba, Reference Guba and Guba1990). In this paradigm, knowledge claims are warranted based on the extent to which there is correspondence across multiple explorations of the same phenomena (Shadish, Reference Shadish1993). Because reality is considered to be complex and multifaceted, post-positivism emphasizes the importance of conducting research in natural settings, exploring contextual factors, and developing an emic understanding of research participants’ perceptions and perspectives (Guba & Lincoln, Reference Guba, Lincoln, Denzin and Lincoln1994).

• Social constructionism. In the second half of the 20^th century, another influential philosophy of science was established. Informed by the thinking of Marx, Durkheim, and George Herbert Mead, sociologists Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman first introduced the theory of social constructionism in The Social Construction of Reality (1966). In this book, they made the central argument that all knowledge and truth claims are constructed by people through their social interactions (Berger & Luckman, Reference Berger and Luckmann1966). Others scientists and academics, like social psychologist Kenneth Gergen, learning theorist Seymour Papert, and anthropologist Clifford Geertz, expanded this theory as they applied it to their own fields. What has emerged is a paradigm that questions the fundamental assumptions of positivism and post-positivism. For example, social constructionism abandons the positivist assumption that an objective reality exists and can be discovered, either fully or partially, through research (Guba & Lincoln, Reference Guba, Lincoln, Denzin and Lincoln1994). Instead, social constructionism contends that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is a construction—a shared social agreement created by people through interaction, dialog, and inquiry (Gergen & Gergen, Reference Gergen and Gergen2003). These constructions are created to provide a basis for sensemaking—a shared cognitive map—within a community or social system (Geldenhuys, Reference Geldenhuys2015). From a social construction perspective, human knowledge is always subjective and relative, influenced by social norms and suppositions, and representative of just one of multiple possible perspectives of reality (Steyaert et al., Reference Steyaert, Bouwen and Looy1996). Ultimately, constructionists argue that meaning and truth are made, not discovered, through human endeavors such as science.

Tracing the development of our field from a philosophy of science perspective

One way to understand the current state of our field is to consider how positivism, post-positivism, and social constructionism have shaped its development. If we are currently experiencing an identity crisis and have lost our way, these divergent philosophies of science may be contributing. Perhaps we are caught on the horns of a dilemma, struggling to reconcile the different ontological, epistemological, and axiological positions advanced by these three influential paradigms.

The foundations of I-O psychology were established in the first half of the 20^th century, during the height of positivism, and it is clear that that this philosophy has had a strong and lasting impact on our field. Much of our scientific knowledge, especially the research we publish in textbooks and journals, is based on hypothetico-deductivist inquiry (Locke, Reference Locke2007; Ones et al. Reference Ones, Kaiser, Chamorro-Premuzic and Svensson2017). This central tenet of positivism, which emerged as the predominant approach to psychological research in the 20^th century (Cattel, Reference Cattell1966; Haig, Reference Haig2005), is at the core of much of the research we conduct and value. Our field also places a heavy emphasis on using psychological measurement, quantitative data, and statistical analysis to establish truth claims (Zickar & Gibby, Reference Zickar, Gibby and Koppes2021). These practices reflect positivistic principles. I-O research often seeks to discover nomothetic laws based on assumptions that employees can be “reduced to a list of abstractions (skills, attitudes, features, properties)” (Weiss & Rupp, Reference Weiss and Rupp2011, p. 84). Published studies are often assumed to reveal objective, universal, and timeless truths discovered by objective and bias-free researchers. A close adherence to the scientific method is considered to be the surest way to prevent bias, errors, and untruths from contaminating research findings.

In recent decades, many of the positivistic foundations of our field have been questioned and countered by post-positivistic perspectives. For example, Ones, Kaiser, Chamorro-Premuzic, and Svensson (Reference Ones, Kaiser, Chamorro-Premuzic and Svensson2017) recently warned that our field’s “fixation on methodological minutia is causing the I-O to become more and more precise in ways that matter less and less.” They encourage I-O psychologists to escape such “methodological straitjackets” by focusing less on theory building and complex statistical analysis, and more on inductive and exploratory research about real-world issues. Pratt and Bonaccio (Reference Pratt and Bonaccio2016) made a similar plea, encouraging I-O scientists and practitioners to recognize the value of qualitative research and mixed methods. Locke (Reference Locke2007) highlighted the power of taking an inductive approach to knowledge development and theory building. From a philosophical perspective, these three articles reflect a desire for the field to move beyond the confines of positivism and hypothetico-deductivism and toward a more post-positivistic approach to science. Other researchers have called for similar changes. For example, Rousseau and Fried (Reference Rousseau and Fried2001) wrote a piercing editorial that highlighted the risks of universalism and encouraged organizational researchers to carefully consider the impact that contextual factors have on their research. A few years later, Cox and Hassard (Reference Cox and Hassard2005) reviewed the concept of triangulation—an example of critical multiplism—and discussed how this technique could be used to improve organizational research. More recently, Lapierre and colleagues (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) have called for stronger partnerships between organizational researchers and organizational stakeholders. Bonaccio and colleagues (Reference Bonaccio, Connelly, Fisher, Gellatly, Gignac and Jetha2018) have encouraged I-O psychologists to adopt an integrated partnered research model and involve organizational stakeholders in all phases of the research process. Both recommendations represent a participatory, post-positivistic approach to research.

Social constructionism has also influenced our field in recent decades. In the 1980s and 90s, a number of scholars, including Cooperrider and Srivastava (Reference Cooperrider, Srivastava, Woodman and Pasmore1987), Cooper (Reference Cooper1989), Chen and Meindl (Reference Chen and Meindl1992), starting using constructionist and postmodernist perspectives to analyze and reconsider various aspects of organizational theory and research. Shortly after the turn of the century, Gergen and Thatchenkery (Reference Gergen and Thatchenkery2004) wrote a critical review of organizational science from a social constructionist perspective. A few years later, Weiss and Rupp (Reference Weiss and Rupp2011) noted that most of the research in our field is nomothetic, organization-centric, and reductionist. To develop a deeper, more holistic understanding of the psychology of work, they encouraged I-O psychologists to conduct more person-centric, phenomenological research focused on employees’ subjective experiences, personal narratives, and constructed worldviews. In the I-O specialty area of organization development (OD), Bushe and Marshak (Reference Bushe and Marshak2009) have used social constructionist theory to develop a new approach to organization change based on language, dialog, and generative metaphors. Camargo-Borges and Rasera (Reference Camargo-Borges and Rasera2013) and Geldenhuys (Reference Geldenhuys2015) have identified various ways that social constructionist principles can be used to enhance and expand OD practice and research.

Putting the current state of our field in perspective

This review provides three important perspectives on the current state of our field. First, it puts our identity quest (Ryan, Reference Ryan2003) into a historical context and highlights how the scientific foundations of I-O psychology have evolved over the past century. When our field was founded, scientific management and differential psychology were influential (Zickar and Gabby, Reference Zickar, Gibby and Koppes2021). But over the past century, a number of other important schools of thought—including human relations theory, open systems theory, and complex adaptive systems theory—have emerged. Each new theory has introduced different ways of thinking about the nature of work, the dynamics of organizations, and the determinants of employee motivation and performance. From an ontological perspective, the field has expanded, moving beyond its reductionist and atomistic roots toward more complex, holistic, and multilevel theories of work. There have been epistemological shifts as well; rigid reliance on hypothetico-deductivism and quantitative methods has given way to a more flexible, pragmatic, and multimethod approach to research. Axiological assumptions are also in flux. For many I-O psychologists, the positivistic premise that our field produces neutral and value-free science is no longer tenable. In recent years, various scientists and practitioners have called for critical reviews of the research we conduct, the people we serve, and the role that our profession plays in society. For example, Woo and colleagues (Reference Woo, Schmidt, Aiken, Islam, Albeg, DePatie, Gelesko and Voss2021) recently argued that our field is overly influenced by capitalism and power, our research is often based on WEIRD (White, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) samples and has limited real-world impact, and we need to embrace a set of different, more inclusive values.

This review also points toward a new way to think about our current crisis and the growing sense of anomie that some say we are experiencing. Perhaps we are lost. Perhaps we, like sheep, have in fact gone astray, each turned to our own way. Or perhaps we are just operating in a world of work and science that is bigger, broader, and filled with more choices. When our field was founded, scientific monism was the dominant logic. Truth was assumed to be singular, specific, and fully discoverable by scientists using the right theory and method. But over the last 30 years, a growing number of philosophers and scientists have started to argue that some phenomena are too vast to be explained by a single theory or methodology (see Kellert et al., Reference Kellert, Longino and Waters2006). This philosophy, known as scientific pluralism, contends that multiple theories and methods are required to understand certain complex realities, and multiple truths can exist at the same time (Smythe & McKensie, Reference Smythe and McKenzie2010). The epistemological, methodological, and analytical options available to us today are also much broader than ever before. We can base our studies on deductive, inductive, or abductive logic. We can gather data using traditional methods, like surveys and experiments, or new ones, like wearable sensors and eye-tracking technology. We can analyze data using tried and true analytical techniques, like t-tests and factor analysis, or new approaches, like set theoretical analysis (Ford et al., Reference Ford, Seers and Neumann2013). In a day and age when corporations rule the world (Korten, Reference Korten2001) and organizational actions impact everything from the environment and the economy to social justice and human rights, the values that inform our work matter. If our research, our recommendations, and our interventions shape the way people behave at work—for better or for worse—then the ethics, principles, and ideals that we bring to our work are consequential.

If this is the case—if we are operating in a world of more choices, and these choices have consequences—then this review ultimately leads to a series of critical questions. How do we make choices as I-O psychologists? As we do our work as scientists and researchers, students and teachers, coaches and consultants, what is guiding the literature we are reading, the methods we are using, the interventions we are recommending? How do our values, ideals, and life experiences affect the hypotheses we develop and the interpretations we make? If we are to find our way forward and move beyond our current identity crisis, these are the types of reflective questions I believe we need to explore.

Reflection, reflexivity, and I-O psychology

How do we account for our humanness as we practice our profession? This is a question that scientists and practitioners in other fields, like sociology (Gouldner, Reference Gouldner1970), anthropology (Rubinstein, Reference Rubenstein and Rubinstein1991), nursing (Nelson, Reference Nelson2012), education (Brookfield, Reference Brookfield1995), and clinical and counseling psychology (Chinn, Reference Chinn2007), have been considering for decades. But based on a review of the I-O literature, it does not appear to be a question we are exploring broadly or deeply.

Perhaps we are not exploring how our perspectives, life experiences, and worldviews affect our work because we do not have a common language or approach to do so. In this section, I will introduce two concepts—reflection and reflexivity—that may help us consider the ways our subjective selves influence our research and analyses, our recommendations and interventions, and our teaching and learning. Then, I will discuss how reflection and reflexivity can be applied in our field. Finally, I will explore a series of questions to demonstrate how our personal perspectives and worldviews—our humanness—are inherent in the work we do.

Reflection

For over a century, psychologists, philosophers, and educators have been writing about the importance of reflection. In How We Think (Reference Dewey1910), John Dewey identified reflection as a critical component of learning. Over the past 50 years, a broad body of literature exploring the role that reflection plays in professional development and practice has emerged. Starting in the 1970s, several foundational reflective models and frameworks (e.g., Argyris & Schon, Reference Argyris and Schon1978; Borton Reference Borton1970; Kolb & Fry Reference Kolb, Fry and Cooper1975) were developed. In the 1980s, Donald Schon’s influential book, The Reflective Practitioner (Reference Schon1983), examined how professionals in five fields—engineering, architecture, management, psychotherapy, and town planning—integrate knowledge, learning, inquiry, sensemaking, and intuition in their day-to-day decisions and practice. In the 90s, Jack Mezirow (Reference Mezirow1997) developed transformative learning theory and highlighted how critical reflection can help adult learners identify their habits of mind, discover their biases, and become autonomous thinkers. In recent decades, reflection has become an important part of the educational experience in many professions, including medicine (e.g., Sandars, Reference Sandars2009), nursing (e.g., Miraglia & Asselin, Reference Miraglia and Asselin2015), social work (e.g., Pawar & Anscombe, Reference Pawar and Anscombe2015), and teaching (e.g., Shandomo, Reference Shandomo2010).

Although different theories, models, and definitions of reflection have been proposed, most share four core characteristics. First, reflection is typically described as a metacognitive process that reveals the assumptions, worldviews, and perspectives that influence the way we think, learn, and act. Double-loop learning (Argyris, Reference Argyris1976), whereby professionals evaluate how organizational norms, policies, and practices affect their decision-making, is an example of metacognitive reflection. Second, reflection focuses on praxis. Reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action (Schon, Reference Schon1983), two exercises that encourage practitioners to think about their behaviors during and after an actual work experience, epitomize this focus on real-world practice. Third, reflection requires deep inquiry and critical examination, of both oneself and others. Kim’s critical reflective inquiry model (Reference Kim1999), for example, encourages practitioners to engage in three types of inquiry (descriptive, reflective, and emancipatory) to promote both personal and shared learning. Finally, the purpose of reflection is to enhance one’s professional capabilities and facilitate continuous learning, growth, and development. Although research on the efficacy of reflection is limited (Mann et al., 2007), and many studies are based on small samples, observational data, and qualitative methods (Dubé & Ducharme, Reference Dubé and Ducharme2015), researchers have found empirical links among reflective practice, skill development, and performance. For example, Mamede et al. (Reference Mamede, Schmidt and Penaforte2008) found that reflective practice improved medical residents’ ability to diagnose complex clinical cases. In a recent working paper, Di Stefano et al. (2016) found that after call center employees engaged in reflective practice, both their self-efficacy and task understanding increased, which in turn improved their performance.

Reflexivity

Reflexivity and reflection are related but distinct concepts. Both emphasize the importance of self-examination, but each points to different reasons for looking within. For advocates of reflection, the purpose of self-inquiry is to foster professional development. For proponents of reflexivity, the purpose of self-inquiry is to produce better science.

The origins of reflexivity can be traced back to the early 20^th century, when George Herbert Mead (Reference Mead1934) defined reflexivity as “the turning back of the experience of the individual upon [oneself]” (p. 134). For Mead, reflexivity was a critical component of his theory of social behaviorism, which argued that our experiences shape our self-identity, and our self-identity shapes our experiences (Cook, Reference Cook1977; Salzman, Reference Salzman2002). In the decades that followed, scholars started to consider how this interplay between self and experience might affect the research process and jeopardize scientists’ ability to conduct objective research. For example, American sociologist Robert Merton (Reference Merton1948) introduced the self-fulfilling prophecy concept and described how expectations and predictions can shape behaviors and outcomes. Karl Popper (Reference Popper1957) and Ernest Nagel (Reference Nagel1961), both philosophers, explored the epistemological implications of this phenomenon and warned that if scientists’ predictions can influence the outcomes of their studies, then the research process actually fashions reality, creates findings, and constructs knowledge. Toward the end of the 20^th century, French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and his colleague Loic Wacquant raised similar concerns in their seminal book, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Reference Bourdieu and Wacquant1992). To counter the effects of researcher bias, they encouraged sociologists to explore the impact that their subjective worldviews may have on their scientific investigations.

Like reflection, reflexivity has been defined in many ways since it was first introduced. In Holland’s (Reference Holland1999) review of the concept at the end of the 20^th century, he noted that “the word is used in so many different senses that it often sustains confusion rather than clarifying any underlying issues” (p. 463). Although the concept remains broad and perplexing 2 decades later, several useful definitions have been developed. For example, Holland (Reference Holland1999) describes reflexivity as a process by which the researcher reflects on the research process and seeks to understand how it may shape research outcomes. Dowling (Reference Dowling2006) defines reflexivity as a practice of self-critique whereby the researcher considers how his or her own experiences may influence the research process. Cunliffe (Reference Cunliffe2003) describes reflexivity as an ongoing self-examination of the philosophical commitments and assumptions that shape a researcher’s work. Finlay (Reference Finlay2002) states:

Over the decades, multiple models of reflexivity have been proposed. Many are abstruse, but there are exceptions. Perhaps one of the most clarifying frameworks was developed by Sue Wilkinson, a British psychologist and feminist scholar. In The Role of Reflexivity in Feminist Psychology (Reference Wilkinson1988), she identifies three aspects of reflexivity: personal, functional, and disciplinary.

• Personal reflexivity is an introspective process of evaluating how the researcher’s subjective life—their interests, concerns, values, and experiences—affects the research they conduct, the topics they study, the questions they explore, and the theories they consider. It also involves considering how the research process affects the researcher. “The fully reflexive analysis,” Wilkinson says, “would entail asking not only how life experience influences research, but also how research feeds back into life experience: that is, about the reciprocal relationship between the two” (p. 494).

• Functional reflexivity focuses on exploring the epistemological assumptions and methodological choices that scientists make as they conduct their research. Wilkinson describes this as a “continuous, critical examination of the practice/process of research to reveal its assumptions, values, and biases” (p. 495). How do the researcher’s values, worldviews, ideologies, and social identities affect the way they design studies, develop hypotheses, select methods, and interpret results? How do the methodologies they use both limit and lead to the findings they discover? Wilkinson says these are important questions to explore. Otherwise, researchers risk overlooking how the methods they use shape the science they create and the knowledge they construct.

• Disciplinary reflexivity is the term Wilkinson uses to describe what she says is the broadest—and potentially the most transformative—type of reflexivity. This involves a collective, critical reflective process whereby members of a scientific community take account of their field of study, evaluate its sociohistorical context, examine its ontological, epistemological, and axiological underpinnings, and “explain its own form and influence, utilizing a developed form of the sociology of science” (p. 495). As part of this critical review, Wilkinson encourages scientists and practitioners to take a hard look at sources of power, privilege, authority, and legitimacy within their field. As a feminist scholar frustrated with the state of academic psychology in the late 1980s, Wilkinson concludes her article by stating: “one of our most powerful tools in working for change is a serious application of the concept of reflexivity” (p. 498).

Are we experiencing a reflexive turn in I-O psychology?

In recent decades, reflective and reflexive turns have occurred across a number of fields—including sociology, anthropology, ethnography, medicine, nursing, education, clinical psychology, counseling psychology, and psychiatry. Within each of these disciplines, researchers, scholars, and practitioners have called for critical reviews and collective examinations of their scientific communities and their areas of practice.

Our field seems to be taking a similar turn. As discussed throughout this paper, I-O psychologists have raised a mounting number of questions about our professional identity and relevance, our research methods and practices, our ethics and principles, and our role in organizations and society. Self-reflection and reflexivity provide a process for exploring these questions and create change, both for individual psychologists and for the field as a whole.

But there are risks associated with taking a reflexive turn. Across disciplines, critics have cautioned that reflexivity can lead to a number of problems. Maton (Reference Maton2003), for example, said that although “the road to reflexive practice is paved with good intentions,” it can increase scientific narcissism and cause researchers to produce studies that are more focused on themselves than their topics of interest (p. 56). Salzman (Reference Salzman2002) questioned the ability of scientists and practitioners to conduct an honest evaluation of themselves. Finlay (Reference Finlay2002) warned that “the process of engaging in reflexivity is full of muddy ambiguity and multiple trails as researchers negotiate the swamp of interminable deconstructions, self analysis, and self disclosure” (p. 209).

Additionally, our field does not have a robust body of literature or set of established practices for engaging in introspection and scientific self-examination. To date, no published studies have explored if or how reflection or reflexivity might affect the practice of I-O psychology. In the field of OD, the concept of self as instrument emphasizes the importance of reflection (see Cheung-Judge, Reference Cheung-Judge2012). But this concept is usually presented as a process for practitioners to use when conducting fieldwork and observing group or organizational dynamics; it has not been studied empirically. As a result, it may not be widely known or utilized by I-O researchers and scientists.

A model of reflection and reflexivity for our field

Despite these challenges, I think there is a way to reap the benefits of reflection and reflexivity without getting lost in navel gazing and mired in solipsism. Wilkinson’s review of reflexivity (Reference Wilkinson1988) provides a helpful structure for building a reflective framework for our field. Based on her tripartite definition, here are three personal, three epistemological, and three disciplinary questions for I-O psychologists to consider.

1. 1. How does your positionality affect your science and practice? Positionality is a term used to describe a scientist’s worldview and the stance they take in relation to their research (Darwin Holmes, Reference Darwin Holmes2020; Foote & Bartell, Reference Foote and Bartell2011; Savin-Baden & Major, Reference Savin-Baden and Major2013). For researchers and practitioners in many fields, including ethnography, anthropology, sociology, workplace diversity, counseling, and social work, examining their positionality is a critical part of their professional practice. It involves exploring how one’s background and social identity, life experiences and history, demographics and psychographics, and personal ontology, epistemology, and axiology affect one’s work (Rowe, Reference Rowe, Coghlan and Brydon-Miller2014). Through this process, scientists and practitioners can develop a better understanding of how their internal perspectives and personal ideologies influence the hypotheses they develop, the research they conduct, the interpretations they make, and the interventions they design.

2. 2. What paradigmatic assumptions guide your work? Over 40 years ago, Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan explored the theoretical foundations of social theory in their influential book, Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis (Reference Burrell and Morgan1979). All social theory, they said, can be analyzed along two dimensions: “assumptions about the nature of science can be thought of in terms of what we call the subjective-objective dimension, and assumptions about the nature of society in terms of a regulation-radical change dimension” (p. 21). Based on these two dimensions, Burrell and Morgan identified four paradigms that they say underpin all approaches to organizational analysis: radical humanism, radical structuralism, functionalism, and interpretivism. This framework raises a series of reflective questions. As an I-O psychologist, are you seeking to maintain order within organizations, systems, and society as a whole, or are you seeking to disrupt the status quo? Do you focus on the idiographic experiences of individual employees or the nomothetic characteristics of workforces as a whole? Do you gravitate toward diagnosing individual differences or social dynamics? Do your interventions tend to shake things up or settle things down? By exploring these types of questions, we can each develop a better understanding of the paradigmatic assumptions that guide our work.

3. 3. What philosophy of science do you subscribe to? Over the course of I-O psychology’s history, three prominent philosophies of science have emerged. As discussed earlier, our field was founded based on positivistic principles. But post-positivistic and social constructionist ideas have become increasingly influential in recent decades. Considering this context, it is important to explore how these various schools of thought have shaped our own interpretive perspectives. Do you consider yourself a positivist, a post-positivist, or a constructionist? Have you selected your philosophy of science based on careful reflection? Or is it a set of received beliefs imparted on you in graduate school? What are the potential blind spots associated with your philosophy of science? How has your philosophy of science helped you make sense of phenomena? How has it limited your science and sensemaking?

4. 4. Is our research too reductionistic? Most I-O psychologists would agree that organizational phenomena are complex. Our field has been influenced by Lewin’s behavioral heuristic (Reference Lewin1936), Bandura’s theory of reciprocal determinism (Reference Bandura1978), and Rice’s multilevel model of group dynamics (Reference Rice1969). As a result, we have developed robust interactional models of behavior and sophisticated statistical techniques for conducting multilevel analysis. But most scientific disciplines produce research that is more reductionistic than holistic (Verschuren, Reference Verschuren2001). As noted earlier, Weiss and Rupp see this tendency in our own field (Reference Weiss and Rupp2011). Considering the complexity of modern organizations, is our approach to research broad enough to understand contemporary workplaces? Do our methodologies allow us to understand equifinality and multifinality within systems, explore emergent organizational dynamics, and develop holistic insights into the employee experience? Over 2 decades ago, Lewis and Grimes (Reference Lewis and Grimes1999) demonstrated how multiparadigm inquiry—a process of using different theories to study the same phenomena—can yield powerful insights into workplace events. A few years later, Richard Hackman (Reference Hackman2003) showed how researchers can learn more about complex organizational dynamics by crossing levels and integrating micro-, meso-, and macro-level data findings. More recently, Ford et al. (Reference Ford, Seers and Neumann2013) demonstrated how set-theoretic analysis can be used to explore complex leadership dynamics in a new and holistic way. These three articles provide compelling examples of what a broader epistemological approach to I-O research might look like.

5. 5. Is our approach to statistical analysis outdated? In the 20^th century, null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) emerged as one of the most common methods to establish truth claims within a number of scientific fields, including our own. Based on analytical approaches developed by Fisher (Reference Fisher1925) and Neyman and Pearson (Reference Neyman and Pearson1933), “NHST is based on positing that a certain condition…is true and then calculating the probability…of the observed data, or of unobserved data more extreme, given the hypothesis and the probability” (Gerrodette, Reference Gerrodette2011, pp. 404–405). In recent decades, concerns have been raised about the limitations and shortcomings of this approach. Rozeboom (Reference Rozeboom1960) was one of the first to question the utilization of NHST in psychology, stating that “its most basic error lies in mistaking the aim of a scientific investigation to be a decision, rather than a cognitive evaluation of propositions” (p. 428). Experimental psychologist Geoffrey Loftus (Reference Loftus1996) identified six major problems with NHST and argued that psychology would be a better science if the field adopted a different approach to data analysis. Some editorial boards, such as the one serving Basic and Applied Social Psychology (BASP), have heeded this advice and banned NHST (Trafimow & Marks, Reference Trafimow and Marks2015). In light of these concerns, we should consider if our field has become over reliant on NHST. Alternative approaches, such as Bayesian inference and likelihood ratio testing, have been suggested (see Szucs & Ioannidis, Reference Szucs and Ioannidis2017). As we advance into the 21^st century, we should explore these alternatives and ensure our approach to statistical analysis is aligned with new approaches to statistical analysis (see Cumming, Reference Cumming2014) and the latest epistemological reasoning.

6. 6. Is the law of the instrument narrowing our methodological choices? “It comes as no particular surprise,” Abraham Kaplan said, “to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself [sic] is especially skilled” (1964, p. 28). This tendency to design research studies based on one’s methodological expertise is known as the law of the instrument. As Kaplan points out, it can be limiting. Based on various literature reviews, the vast majority of published I-O research is based on quantitative methods (see Eby et al., Reference Eby, Hurst, Butts, Lance and Vandenberg2009; Pratt & Bonaccio, Reference Pratt and Bonaccio2016). This raises an important question: has our field become methodologically narrow minded and lopsided? As Pratt and Bonaccio note, there are multiple reasons I-O psychologists should use qualitative methods (2016). As Edmondson and McManus (Reference Edmondson and McManus2007) argue, the methodologies we use should be based on the level of extant knowledge about the topic we are studying. Considering the complexity of work in the 21^st century, now seems like a good time to move beyond methodological dualism (see Yang & Boo, Reference Yang and Yoo2018) and bridge the inductive-deductive divide. In applied fields such as nursing and social work, many researchers and practitioners are doing just that, moving toward a pragmatic research paradigm that is based on abductive logic and promotes a mixed method approach to data collection (see Lipscomb, Reference Lipscomb2012; Yvonne Feilzer, Reference Yvonne Feilzer2010). In our own field, Woo (Reference Woo2019) recently demonstrated how inductive and abductive approaches can be used to understand employee turnover. By exploring these new approaches, we can move our field beyond the limitations of our positivistic past and find new and integrative ways to utilize quantitative and qualitative methods.

7. 7. How has our field been shaped by sociohistorical forces? Harre and Moghaddam (Reference Harre, Moghaddam, Rockmore and Margolis2006) note that psychologists tend to view research through an ahistorical lens: Findings are often “presented as, and probably believed…to be, universal, pan-temporal laws of human nature” (p. 95). But Rousseau and Fried (Reference Rousseau and Fried2001) remind us that “research is a product of its times” (p. 5). Over the past century, our field has been influenced by several different social and historical forces (see Koppes Bryan, Reference Koppes Bryan2021, for a recent review). Any well-trained I-O psychologist knows this. But there is a notable difference between (a) understanding the history of our field and (b) evaluating how sociohistorical factors affect our current-day science and practice. How have dominant ideologies and economic philosophies shaped the studies we design and the research questions we pursue? How have social and political movements impacted the theories we develop and the interventions we implement? Highhouse and Schmitt’s analysis (Reference Highhouse, Schmitt, Weiner, Schmitt and Highhouse2012) of four longstanding tensions within I-O psychology is a compelling example of the insights that historical reviews can provide. By reflecting on the ways that world events, social concerns, technological advances, political movements, legal regulations, and economic ideologies have influenced our science and practice, we can become more aware of the choices we make as I-O psychologists. Otherwise, we risk being steered by forces of which we are unaware.

8. 8. Who do we serve? Because of the applied nature of our field, our work is consequential. The questions and populations we study, the methods and theories we teach, the articles and books we write, and the recommendations and interventions we advance have broad economic, political, societal, and ethical implications. In a recent commentary, Lefkowitz (Reference Lefkowitz2019) emphasized that because our mandate as psychologists is “to improve the condition of individuals, organizations and society” (See the American Psychological Association’s Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (apa.org)), we have a professional and moral responsibility to reflect on who we have served in the past and who we should serve in the future. This has been a topic of concern and debate for decades. Some, like Cascio and Aguinis (Reference Cascio and Aguinis2008) and Ployhart (Reference Ployhart2012), have argued that to remain relevant, our science and practice should address the real-world challenges—like managing human capital and maintaining competitive advantages—that business executives, senior leaders, and human resource practitioners face. Others have said this approach has made us servants of power (Baritz, Reference Baritz1960) and handmaidens of capitalism (Gerard, Reference Gerard2017), focused more on the POSH needs of privileged professionals (Gloss et al., Reference Gloss, Carr, Reichman, Abdul-Nasiru and Oestereich2017) than the day-to-day struggles of the working class (Bergman & Jean, Reference Bergman and Jean2016) and the poor (Berry et al., Reference Berry, Reichmann, Klobas, MacLachlan, Hui and Carr2009).

9. 9. What future do we envision? We are living in a time of unprecedented challenge and change. The COVID-19 pandemic has strained public health systems, tested governments, toppled companies, disrupted economies, and caused a global mental health crisis. New technologies, including robots, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI), are transforming the way we work and ushering in a fourth industrial revolution (Schwab, Reference Schwab2017). Social justice movements are reshaping values, norms, and expectations inside and outside organizations. Climate change and income inequality are causing world leaders and citizens to reconsider their personal, professional, and political choices. Many of the challenges organizations face today are adaptive, rather than technical, problems: They are complex and multicausal and require innovative solutions (Heifetz, Reference Heifetz1994). They are also disruptive, raising new ontological, epistemological, and axiological questions for our field. What is the purpose of work and organizations in the 21^st century? How will data science and open science impact the way we conduct research? What are the ethical implications of AI? Do we have a public policy role to play when it comes to social, environmental, and economic sustainability? If we are going to live up to our mandate as psychologists, these are the kinds of questions we need to explore and discuss.

Toward a more reflective and reflexive approach to I-O psychology

Identity crises are, by their very nature, disorienting and disruptive. But they can also be reorienting and renewing. In this paper, I have tried to argue that reflection and reflexivity can provide I-O researchers, practitioners, educators, and students with a reorienting perspective and serve as a catalyst for renewing our science and practice. By engaging in the personal practice of self-reflection and self-examination, we can discover our interpretive lens (Denzin & Lincoln, Reference Denzin, Lincoln, Denzin and Lincoln2000), expose the assumptions, biases, and blind spots we bring to our work, and account for our humanness as social scientists. By reviewing the current state of our epistemological practices, we can question the logic and limitations of our current research methods, identify and consider new methodological approaches, and prevent scientific dogmatism and anachronisms from curbing our curiosity (Rabenu & Tziner, Reference Rabenu and Tziner2018). By engaging in a collective dialog about our field’s past, our future, and our values, we can develop a deeper and broader understanding of the impact that I-O psychology has had, and can have, on individuals, organizations, and society.

For reflection and reflexivity to take hold in our field, mindsets, practices, and praxis will need to change. The classroom is a good place to start implementing these changes. As noted earlier, reflection and reflexivity are not currently part of SIOP’s recommended education plan for graduate I-O programs. But considering the number of choices that are made in the learning process, both by teachers (e.g., which theories and research will I feature; which articles and texts will we read) and students (e.g., which line of research will I pursue; which advisor will I choose), this seems like a glaring oversight. As Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire stated, “education… is never neutral. When we try to be neutral….we support the dominant ideology. Not being neutral, education must be either liberating or domesticating” (Reference Freire1985, p. 17). If this is the case, reflection and reflexivity should be cornerstones of all I-O training programs.

There are many ways faculty and students can work together to embed more reflection and reflexivity into the learning process. Having a critical discussion about the questions posed in this article is one place to start. Exploring various models of reflection (see Nguyen et al., Reference Nguyen, Fernandez, Karsenti and Charlin2014 for a recent review) and reflexivity (see Cunliffe, Reference Cunliffe2004), and learning how other professional fields—like nursing, medicine, education, and counseling—utilize both concepts is another possibility. Developing a positionality statement (Darwin Holmes, Reference Darwin Holmes2020) and comparing perspectives about personal paradigms, philosophies of science, topics of interest, methods of choice, professional values, and career aspirations could also be fruitful and enlightening. Keeping a reflective learning journal, engaging in reflective conversations, and sharing reflective practices and learnings—with peers, teachers, mentors, or advisors—may also yield valuable developmental insights.

These practices should not be limited to the classroom. Early, mid, and late-career scientists and practitioners can benefit from the learnings and insights generated from reflection and reflexivity. Much of the advice we provide as I-O psychologists emphasizes the importance of curiosity (Celik et al., Reference Celik, Storme, Davila and Myszkowski2016), learning agility (Hoff & Burke, Reference Hoff and Burke2017), mental flexibility (Grant, Reference Grant2021), and adaptability (Van Dam, Reference Van Dam, Oreg, Michel and By2013) at work. Committing to the practice of professional self-reflection is a way for us to practice what we preach.

Reflective practices can also be used at the community level to identify, discuss, and address issues that are affecting our field. According to the principles of generative change (Marshak & Bushe, Reference Marshak and Bushe2018), social systems can increase their resilience and adaptability by engaging organizational members in generative dialogs about the challenges they face. With over 9,000 members and 60 local communities, SIOP provides a possible global network for fostering these types of dialogs. By convening small and diverse groups of interested scientists and practitioners to engage in reflective dialogs about critical topics, we could tap into the collective wisdom of our field and learn from each other. For example, the scientist—practitioner gap has been a topic of concern—in our field and in others—for decades (Olenick et al., Reference Olenick, Walker, Bradburn and DeShon2018). Intergroup dialogs (Nagda et al., Reference Nagda, Yeakley, Gurin, Sorensen and Tropp2012) or polarity management-based discussions (Johnson, Reference Johnson1996) between practitioners and scientists interested in bridging this gap may help identify root causes and identify common ground. Other reflective collaborations, focused on other topics of interest, could also be launched. Communities of learning and communities of practice could be established to explore emerging topics and new scientific and practitioner developments. Scientometric analyses (see König and colleagues, Reference König, Bajwa, Schui and Fell2018) could be conducted to gain a better understanding of publishing trends in our field. Collaborative inquiries could be initiated to learn how other fields are evolving their epistemologies, methodologies, and praxis. Large group interventions, like open space technology (Owen, Reference Owen2008) or future search (Weisbord & Janoff, Reference Weisbord and Janoff2000), could be used to discuss the future of work, the future of our field, and the roles and responsibilities we have to our stakeholders and society. Given the size of our field, the diversity of members, and the complexity of modern-day science and 21^st-century organizations, arriving at consensus on how to resolve all the challenges we face is probably not possible or even desirable. But metaconsensus—agreement about the breadth, depth, and nature of the issues we face as a field (Niemeyer & Dryzek, Reference Niemeyer and Dryzek2007)—is critical.

Fifty years ago, American psychotherapist Margaret Rioch (Reference Rioch1971) wrote an article entitled “All we like sheep” (Isaiah 53:6): followers and leaders. Using verse 53.6 from the book of Isaiah as her point of departure, she explored the dynamics of leadership and followership. Toward the end of the article, she highlighted a common tension that comes with being part of a group:

The same can be said of our field. We need to share common standards and values to guide our work, evaluate our research, and build evidence-based solutions for real-world problems. We need a core epistemology and axiology to hold us together. But we also need a field full of curious and independent-minded scientists and practitioners, eager to question traditions, push boundaries, and explore new ideas. Otherwise, our work will grow stale. Reflection and reflexivity provide a way for us to explore this tension between adherence and autonomy, evaluate ourselves and our research, expand our skills and capabilities, and evolve our science and practice.