Temas em Psicologia
Print version ISSN 1413-389X
Abstract
CARVALHO, Ana M. A; IMPERIO-HAMBURGER, Amélia and PEDROSA, Maria Isabel. Given and taken: theory and experience in psychological research. Temas psicol. [online]. 1999, vol.7, n.3, pp.205-212. ISSN 1413-389X.
This paper discusses the entanglement between theory and observation. Any theorization proceeds from observed, trimmed and constituted data, from a frame of thought, which has been fed-back and transformed. The defmition of method in this entanglement can be: the systematic thought, not specific of a discipline, structured by a theoretical and experience organizer referential, which builds up shareable knowledge about the target phenomenon. This argument has been illustrated by observing children's free play, aiming at identifying determinism and non-determinism at the levei of psychological phenomena. We have made it clear how the procedural options can reflect particular theoretical frames: Brownian movement, selforganizing systems, and sociability as the basis of the biological-cultural system observed. We have pointed out how the data thus constructed capture the nature of this system, leading to the formulation of principies of its sociability (attention orientation, sharing and persistence of meanings) - or else, how "data" (given) can become "taken from".
Keywords : observation and theory; interdisciplinarity; self-organization; child.