In Chapter 14, Studying the Psychology of Persons: Methods, Assumptions, and Commitments, we describe general characteristics of research methods that are based on a view of people as socially situated persons. These methods go by different names, such as interpretative research, qualitative research, and in some cases ethnographic research. We describe the steps in such research: developing a knowledge interest and useful researchable questions, selecting participants and compose a group to study, deciding how to gather data, and choosing methods for analysis. We discuss common assumptions and commitments in these approaches, such as an interest in what is specific and contextualized in human life, and an interest in people’s language use. The final part of the chapter contains a discussion of what it would mean for psychologists to change their theoretical thinking to such a degree that they need to change their thinking styles, as well as suggestions for how to initiate such changes.

Addressing the human-made problems of the 21st century requires rethinking the aims of social and developmental psychology. It requires scholarship that seeks not merely to describe how humans develop but one that aims to intervene in how humans develop. More fundamentally, it requires resisting the widespread idea that there are causes of human behaviour (socialisation, history, culture) that push us mechanically from the past into the future, and instead focus on humans as world-makers. Either by accepting the status quo or resisting it, humans must take responsibility for the world of tomorrow. The question for social psychology is not what causes human behaviour or even how human behaviour changes and develops, but rather what type of people we want to be. Such a pragmatic and genetic social and developmental psychology would be doubly genetic: it is not only about change but also about enabling humans to critically reflect on and collectively guide these changes. Specifically, it needs to critically challenge and expand the possible, ensure that world-making tools are fairly distributed and create theories of human behaviour that encourage a richer humanity.