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In this article, the author offers his reflections on being elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association as an historian of psychology. The author didn't start out as an historian. His bachelor and doctorate are both in psychology. But he did also certainly choose to leave psychology, then to return with a different perspective. So this election feels like an affirmation of that decision, and an endorsement of the scholarship that resulted: his service to science by other means, after he was himself "revised and resubmitted." Nearly two decades after his original departure from experimental psychology, the author has decided that "science" is the set of tested- and defended boundaries of what we think we know, which move as they're renegotiated. In other words, science is the shared collection and discussion of what has been accepted to be the case (as well as the process of careful revision). But it's also then the history of science that provides evidence to answer the philosophical "demarcation problem," not science itself. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

This article explores how replication was employed as a scientific tool by early experimentalists such as Fechner, Ebbinghaus, Wundt and Titchener. What was the role of replication within experimental work? How and why were psychological experiments replicated? Fechner’s experiments were not only replicated within the inner circle of experimental psychologists, but also beyond in a cross-cultural appropriation. Ebbinghaus’ experiments were replicated by Müller and Schumann who introduced further controls of variables such as intonation. Despite some difficulties, psychologists manage to replicate the original main trend even a century later. Wundt used introspection when doing his experiments on feelings. Titchener would challenge Wundt’s three-dimensional theory in a critique based on the replication undertaken by one of his students. Overall, the present research points out eight different functions of replication, some aimed at reproducing the same results as the original research and others expecting a different outcome.

“Medicalization“ as a theoretical concept has received much attention in sociology throughout decades and people’s drug use is a social phenomenon investigated from different perspectives in the social and life sciences. Research on “study drugs” is an area where many of these perspectives converge – not only because it prompts us to reconsider the treatment/enhancement distinction. In this article, Stephan Schleim describes how the topic of (allegedly) performance-enhancing drugs has fascinated him since high school. When scholars started discussing this as “neuroenhancement”, several things went wrong, he argues. Read on to find out whether students really use “study drugs” as much as is often reported and whether there might be an alternative way to make sense of people’s substance use.

What does a name mean in translation? Quine argued, famously, that the meaning of gavagai is indeterminate until you learn the language that uses that word to refer to its object. The case is similar with scientific texts, especially if they are older; historical. Because the meanings of terms can drift over time, so too can the meanings that inform experiments and theory. As can a life’s body of work and its contributions. Surely, these are also the meanings of a name; shortcuts to descriptions of the author who produced them, or of their thought (or maybe their collaborations). We are then led to wonder whether the names of scientists may also mean different things in different languages. Or even in the same language. This problem is examined here by leveraging the insights of historians of psychology who found that the meaning of “Wundt” changed in translation: his experimentalism was retained, and his Völkerpsychologie lost, so that what Wundt meant was altered even as his work—and his name—informed the disciplining of Modern Psychology as an experimental science. Those insights are then turned here into a general argument, regarding meaning-change in translation, but using a quantitative examination of the translations of Piaget’s books from French into English and German. It is therefore Piaget who has the focus here, evidentially, but the goal is broader: understanding and theorizing “the mistaken mirror” that reflects only what you can think to see (with implications for replication and institutional memory).

Purpose Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals, and LB women specifically, have an increased risk for psychiatric morbidity, theorized to result from stigma-based discrimination. To date, no study has investigated the mental health disparities between LGB and heterosexual AQ1individuals in a large cross-national population-based comparison. The current study addresses this gap by examining differences between LGB and heterosexual participants in 13 cross-national surveys, and by exploring whether these disparities were associated with country-level LGBT acceptance. Since lower social support has been suggested as a mediator of sexual orientation-based differences in psychiatric morbidity, our secondary aim was to examine whether mental health disparities were partially explained by general social support from family and friends. Methods Twelve-month prevalence of DSM-IV anxiety, mood, eating, disruptive behavior, and substance disorders was assessed with the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview in a general population sample across 13 countries as part of the World Mental Health Surveys. Participants were 46,889 adults (19,887 males; 807 LGB-identified). Results Male and female LGB participants were more likely to report any 12-month disorder (OR 2.2, p Conclusion These results provide cross-national evidence for an association between sexual minority status and psychiatric morbidity, and highlight that for women, but not men, this association was partially mediated by perceived openness with family. Future research into individual-level and cross-national sexual minority stressors is needed.

It is a historical coincidence that the term 'abortion' stands for the undoing of even the most early involuntary conception. Originally an abortion was an unwanted miscarriage. As a derivative, late nineteenth-century physicians introduced the expression of 'provoked abortion' for the age-old operation ending a wanted pregnancy to save a woman's life. Hence, this expression was unrelated to the even older attempts to 'induce one's period' with herbs or 'invoke a miscarriage' at a woman's own initiative. This article summarizes the twentieth-century developments leading to the use of 'abortion' mostly for the latter practices. As an unfortunate consequence, misoprostol created in the 1980s acquired the morally loaden name 'abortion pill'. Yet, it may as well be seen as the long-searched 'herb' providing sexually active women with a safe, efficient and inexpensive means to keep one's period going regardless of their eggcell being fertilized or not.

Science policymakers and funding agencies are increasingly interested in the societal impact of research. In practice, this means that, when applying for funding, researchers have to justify the academic impact (e.g. publications and conferences) and the societal impact (e.g. influence on policy and practice) of their proposed research. This paper aims to find out how these requirements relate by comparing two ethnographic case studies of research in health care and health assessment that aim to combine both forms of impact. I analyze the networks, values, and strategies in both research groups, and show that achieving societal and academic impacts are different research practices. Hence, I argue that academic and societal impacts should not simply be added up as requirements for research funding or academic career development but should be understood and appreciated on their own terms.

The figure of the brain has continued to rise in prominence for at least 30 years. This development continues to raise important questions: in particular, to what extent and in what ways does the brain supplant the person as the presumed origin of human behaviour? Whereas it has previously been discussed in general terms, here we address this question through an ethnographic study of the experimental articulation of the brain in neuromarketing research. Drawing on analytical themes from science and technology studies, we argue that it is crucial to investigate the enactment of the brain in situated practice and to understand the effects on prevailing accountability relations. We analyse the enactment of the consuming brain in neuromarketing experiments and in experts communication of experimental results. We show how the consuming brain emerges from reconfigured sets of socio-material relations (between e.g. consumers, brains, brain scanning operators, consultants) and how this entails a redistribution of accountability relations. This results in an ontological respecification of the consumer, who is no longer deemed accountable for his/her actions. Instead spokespersons on behalf of the brain - neuromarketing technologies and experts - assume accountability for revealing why consumers buy what they buy. We conclude that the putative shift from person to brain is in fact characterised by a redistribution of accountability relations in neuromarketing practices. We call for further studies of accountability redistributions in practice, so as better to situate novel explanations of human behaviour. Funding Agencies|Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Open Research Area (ORA) [ES/I013458/1]

Scientific attempts to identify biomarkers to reliably diagnose mental disorders have thus far been unsuccessful. This has inspired the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach which decomposes mental disorders into behavioral, emotional, and cognitive domains. This perspective article argues that the search for biomarkers in psychiatry presupposes that the present mental health categories reflect certain (neuro-) biological features, that is, that these categories are reified as biological states or processes. I present two arguments to show that this assumption is very unlikely: First, the heterogeneity (both within and between subjects) of mental disorders is grossly underestimated, which is particularly salient for an example like Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Second, even the search for the biological basis of psychologically more basic categories (cognitive and emotional processes) than the symptom descriptions commonly used in mental disorder classifications has thus far been inconclusive. While philosophers have discussed this as the problem of mind-body-reductionism for ages, Turkheimer presented a theoretical framework comparing weak and strong biologism which is more useful for empirical research. This perspective article concludes that mental disorders are brain disorders in the sense of weak, but not strong biologism. This has important implications for psychiatric research: The search for reliable biomarkers for mental disorder categories we know is unlikely to ever be successful. This implies that biology is not the suitable taxonomic basis for psychiatry, but also psychology at large.

Phineas Gage is one of the most famous neurological patients. His case is still described in psychology textbooks and in scientific journal articles. A controversy has been going on about the possible consequences of his accident, destroying part of his prefrontal cortex, particularly with respect to behavioral and personality changes. Earlier studies investigated the accuracy of descriptions in psychology textbooks. This is, to my knowledge, the first analysis of journal articles in this respect. These were investigated with regard to four criteria: Description of (1) personality changes, (2) psychopathy-like behavior, (3) alternative explanations besides the immediate brain damage, and (4) Gage’s recovery. 92% of articles described personality changes, 52% of a psychopathy-like kind; only 4% mentioned alternative explanations and 16% described Gage’s recovery. The results are discussed in the light of the available historical evidence. The article closes with several suggestions on improving science communication about the famous case.

Psychiatric disorders are studied at multiple levels, but there is no agreement on how these levels are related to each other, or how they should be understood in the first place. In this paper, I provide an account of levels and their relationships that is suited for psychopathology, drawing from recent debates in philosophy of science. Instead of metaphysical issues, the focus is on delivering an understanding of levels that is relevant and useful for scientific practice. I also defend a pragmatic approach to the question of reduction, arguing that even in-principle reductionists should embrace pluralism in practice. Finally, I discuss the benefits and challenges in integrating explanations and models of different levels.

De eerste theorie van autisme was dat het een contactstoornis is. Het artikel geeft een kort overzicht van de ontwikkeling van dit idee in het werk van George Frankl, Hans Asperger en Leo Kanner.

Langlitz and colleagues wrote about clinically used psychedelic drugs and the possibility of a “moral psychopharmacology” earlier in this journal (1). They emphasized the context-dependency of the effects of these substances (e.g., ayahuasca, psilocybin) and the importance of understanding their impact on social and moral cognition, particularly now that there is more research on their possible clinical applications (e.g., to facilitate psychotherapy). In this opinion article, I want to, first, reflect on the context-dependency from the perspective of recent research on placebo effects, and, second, clarify different meanings of “moral psychopharmacology”. The latter will be placed in the context of a broader conceived view on drug instrumentalization (2–4) and different values associated with it (5–7). In the conclusion, I will briefly distinguish aspects primarily relevant to theoretical, research-oriented, or applied perspectives, respectively, to inform further theoretical, empirical, and ethical discussion of these topics.

One of the original aims of this journal was to promote theory in psychology. Nowadays more and more psychological researchers are calling for more theory development, and articles on the “theory crisis” have also found their way into mainstream journals. In this article, we provide a further perspective to this theory debate. Over the past century, philosophy of science has staged extensive discussions on the mathematization of nature and on the role of mathematics in the development of theory and the connection of theory to empirical facts. We show that these discussions are highly relevant for the current debate in psychology. In particular, we emphasize the importance of conceptual work in the process of mathematization, and the role of mathematics in co-ordinating theory and observations. We then discuss the implications that these points have for statistically oriented psychology in general and for the recent theory debate in psychology.

Picking up on John Forrester’s (1949–2015) disclosure that he felt ‘haunted’ by the suspicion that Thomas Kuhn’s (1922–96) interests had become his own, this essay complexifies our understanding of both of their legacies by presenting two sites for that haunting. The first is located by engaging Forrester’s argument that the connection between Kuhn and psychoanalysis was direct. (This was the supposed source of his historiographical method: ‘climbing into other people’s heads’.) However, recent archival discoveries suggest that that is incorrect. Instead, Kuhn’s influence in this regard was Jean Piaget (1896–1980). And it is Piaget’s thinking that was influenced directly by psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis then haunts Kuhn’s thinking through Piaget, and thus Piaget haunts Forrester through Kuhn. To better understand this second site of the haunting—which is ultimately the more important one, given the intent of this special issue—Piaget’s early psychoanalytic ideas are uncovered through their interaction with his early biology and subsequent turn to philosophy. But several layers of conflicting contemporary misunderstandings are first excavated. The method of hauntology is also developed, taking advantage of its origins as a critical response to the psychoanalytic discourse. As a result of adopting this approach, a larger than usual number of primary sources have been unearthed and presented as evidence (including new translations from French originals). Where those influences have continued to have an impact, but their sources forgotten, they have thus been returned. They can then all be considered together in deriving new perspectives of Forrester’s cases/Kuhn’s exemplars/Piaget’s stages.

Phineas Gage is one of the most famous neurological patients. His case is still described in psychology textbooks and in scientific journal articles. A controversy has been going on about the possible consequences of his accident, destroying part of his prefrontal cortex, particularly with respect to behavioral and personality changes. Earlier studies investigated the accuracy of descriptions in psychology textbooks. This is, to my knowledge, the first analysis of journal articles in this respect. These were investigated with regard to four criteria: Description of (1) personality changes, (2) psychopathy-like behavior, (3) alternative explanations besides the immediate brain damage, and (4) Gage’s recovery. 92% of articles described personality changes, 52% of a psychopathy-like kind; only 4% mentioned alternative explanations and 16% described Gage’s recovery. The results are discussed in the light of the available historical evidence. The article closes with several suggestions on improving science communication about the famous case.

Finding a scientific, third-person explanation of subjective experience or phenomenal content is commonly called the “hard problem” of consciousness. There has recently been a surge in neuropsychological research on meditation in general and long-term meditators in particular. These experimental subjects are allegedly capable of generating a stable state of consciousness over a prolonged period of time, which makes experimentation with them an interesting paradigm for consciousness research. This perspective article starts out with a historical reconstruction of the “hard problem,” tracing it back to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Emil du Bois-Reymond in the 18th and 19th century, respectively, and the problem of introspection as already acknowledged by Wilhelm Wundt in the 19th century. It then discusses the prospects of research on long-term meditators from a contemporary perspective and with respect to the neurophenomenological research program already advocated by Francisco J. Varela.

Although psychology’s recent crisis has been attributed to various scientific practices, it has come to be called a “replication crisis,” prompting extensive appraisals of this putatively crucial scientific practice. These have yielded disagreements over what kind of replication is to be preferred and what phenomena are being explored, yet the proposals are all grounded in a conventional philosophy of science. This article proposes another avenue that invites moving beyond a discovery metaphor of science to rethink research as enabling realities and to consider how empirical findings enact or perform a reality. An enactment perspective appreciates multiple, dynamic realities and science as producing different entities, enactments that ever encounter differences, uncertainties, and precariousness. The axioms of an enactment perspective are described and employed to more fully understand the two kinds of replication that predominate in the crisis disputes. Although the enactment perspective described here is a relatively recent development in philosophy of science and science studies, some of its core axioms are not new to psychology, and the article concludes by revisiting psychologists’ previous calls to apprehend the dynamism of psychological reality to appreciate how scientific practices actively and unavoidably participate in performativity of reality.

Solitary Persons? describes the autism theories of George Frankl (1897-1975), Hans Asperger (1906-1980) and Leo Kanner (1894-1981). These medical doctors were among the first to work with autistic children. Frankl’s role in the history of autism was discovered in 2015 and is clarified here. Asperger and Kanner are well-known founders of autism research, but this dissertation presents new discoveries about their work and a new interpretation of their work as a whole.Frankl, Asperger and Kanner each had a metaphor for autistic children. Frankl used a ‘prisoners’ metaphor: he believed that autistic children, even when they are with other people, are stuck in a solitary state: they do not express how they feel or notice such expressions in others. Asperger’s metaphor for autistic children was that they are ‘machines’. He believed that autism involves an overdevelopment of intellect and of independence from the environment. Kanner wrote that autistic children are ‘barometers’, sensitive to the emotional climate in their home. He believed that autism is an emotional disorder that affects and is affected by the whole personality.Contemporary theories of autism usually explain only some of its symptoms. This conceptual-historical study is a search for older theories of autism that conceptualise its entire symptomology.

Drie auteurs ontwikkelden het idee dat autisme een contactstoornis is: Georg(e) Frankl (1897-1975), Hans Asperger (1906-1980) en Leo Kanner (1894-1981). Zij waren praktiserend artsen, die werkten in de eerste medische instellingen die zich richtten op de mentale problemen van kinderen. Frankl introduceerde het idee van een contactstoornis. Frankls rol in de geschiedenis van autisme werd ontdekt in 2015 en wordt hier verhelderd. Zijn idee beïnvloedde Asperger en Kanner, die benadrukten dat autistische kinderen op een andere manier contact maken met hun omgeving. Asperger en Kanner zijn bekende grondleggers van het autismeonderzoek, maar het artikel presenteert nieuwe ontdekkingen over hun werk. Deze ontdekkingen laten zien dat alle symptomen van autisme een logische plek hadden in hun theorieën.

The texts presents a summary of a recent research dealing with the Spanish legal expert and prison intendant C. Arenal's contribution to psychology. Mülberger argues that her book on the visitor of the poor (1860) was viewed at the time as a psychological text. In a later article she published in 1887, Arenal uses the label "comparative psychology" for her work. Mülberger shows how a reassessment of these texts can help to better understand her project and its inherent opposition with the then rising Italian criminology of the Positivist School.

Scholars from various disciplines discuss the ethical, legal, and social implications of neurotechnology. Some have proposed four concrete “neurorights”. This review presents the research of two pioneers in brain stimulation from the 1950s to 1970s, José M. R. Delgado and Elliot S. Valenstein, who also reflected upon the ethical, legal, and social aspects of their and other scientists’ related research. Delgado even formulated the vision “toward a psychocivilized society” where brain stimulation is used to control, in particular, citizens’ aggressive and violent behavior. Valenstein, by contrast, believed that the brain is not organized in such a way to allow the control or even removal of only negative processes without at the same time diminishing desirable ones. The paper also describes how animal and human experimentation on brain stimulation was carried out in that time period. It concludes with a contemporary perspective on the relevance of neurotechnology for neuroethics, neurolaw, and neurorights, including two recent examples for brain-computer interfaces.

In dit boek worden gangbare spreekwoorden onderzocht door jonge wetenschappers vanuit zeer verschillende disciplines.

Spiegelneuronen zijn hersencellen die vuren op twee momenten: als je een actie uitvoert en als je waarneemt dat een ander diezelfde actie uitvoert. Lange tijd werden ze beschouwd als een revolutionaire ontdekking die tot nieuwe inzichten zou leiden over empathie, sociale cognitie en mentale stoornissen, zoals autisme. Recent onderzoek suggereert echter dat spiegelneuronen een zeer bescheiden rol hebben in het verklaren van menselijk gedrag. Het lijkt aannemelijk dat ze niet een aangeboren mechanisme vormen voor het begrijpen van elkaar, maar slechts een bijproduct van associatief leren zijn. De geschiedenis van het spiegelneuronen-onderzoek is een goed voorbeeld van een wetenschappelijke hype die op weinig feiten gebaseerd was.

Recently Kenneth Kendler and Peter Zachar have raised doubts about the correspondence theory of truth and scientific realism in psychopathology. They argue that coherentist or pragmatist approaches to truth are better suited for understanding the reality of psychiatric disorders. In this article, I show that rejecting realism based on the correspondence theory is deeply problematic: It makes psychopathology categorically different from other sciences, and results in an implausible view of scientific discovery and progress. As an alternative, I suggest a robustness-based approach that can accommodate the significance of coherence and pragmatic factors without rejecting scientific realism and the correspondence theory of truth.

The large-scale fraud of social psychologist Diederik Stapel has fuelled debates about the state of the discipline and the need for reform. Stapel became a tool to think with in the crisis in psychology. In the process a collection of imposters and truth-tellers were constructed and performed, each representing a different relation to the truth. Whereas Stapel was denounced as a cynical con man by his colleagues, he himself performed the role of a tragic imposter, and while many social psychologists presented themselves as the unwitting victims of Stapel, critics saw the affair as evidence that psychology is a wannabe science in need of fundamental reform. The various imposters and truth-tellers that made their appearance imply different ways of drawing distinctions between honesty and deception, appearance and reality, truth and story telling, frankness and civility.

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) is known for his contributions to developmental psychology and educational theory. His name is associated especially with Stage Theory. That we believe him to have focused solely on cognitive development, however, is not because he did. This is instead the result of the popularization of his writings in the United States during the Cold War. (A period of crisis and subsequent education reform.) The overpowering influence of those interests blinded us to his larger framework, which he called “genetic epistemology,” and of which his stages were just a part. To address the resulting and continuing misunderstandings, this entry essay presents original historical scholarship—distilling over a thousand pages of archival documents (correspondence, diary entries, budgets, and reports)—to provide an insider’s look at Piaget’s research program from the perspective of the Rockefeller Foundation: genetic epistemology’s primary funding agency in the United States from the mid-1950s through the early-1960s. The result is therefore an examination of how a group of interested Americans came to understand Piaget’s writings in French in the period just prior to their wider popularization in English, as well as of how Piaget presented himself and his ideas during the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. My goal, however, is not to summarize the whole of this misunderstood program. Instead, I aim to provide a source of archivally-grounded perspective that will allow for new insights about the Genevan School that are unrelated to American Cold War interests. In the process, we also derive new means to see how Piaget’s experimental examinations of the development of individual knowledge served to inform his team’s investigations of the evolution of science (and vice versa).

Contains fulltext : 249813.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) In recent years, network approaches to psychopathology have sparked much debate and have had a significant impact on how mental disorders are perceived in the field of clinical psychology. However, there are many important challenges in moving from theory to empirical research and clinical practice and vice versa. Therefore, in this article, we bring together different points of view on psychological networks by methodologists and clinicians to give a critical overview on these challenges, and to present an agenda for addressing these challenges. In contrast to previous reviews, we especially focus on methodological issues related to temporal networks. This includes topics such as selecting and assessing the quality of the nodes in the network, distinguishing between- and within-person effects in networks, relating items that are measured at different time scales, and dealing with changes in network structures. These issues are not only important for researchers using network models on empirical data, but also for clinicians, who are increasingly likely to encounter (person-specific) networks in the consulting room. 15 p.

Book review of a book by Belgian bio-ethicist Kristien Hens that offers a philosophical discussion of autism.

Levels of organization is an ambiguous concept but typically refers to entities at a higher level being composed of entities at a lower level. Understood in this way, levels of organization have played an important role in various branches of biology, including evo-devo. However, sustained attempts at defining or characterizing levels precisely have been rare. The most significant approaches are Wimsatt’s theory of levels of organization, Craver’s account of levels of mechanisms, and recent skeptical or deflationary perspectives. Although many definitions of levels of organization face various difficulties, their flexibility and intuitive appeal suggest that the concept is likely to remain active in biological research, including in evo-devo.

My paper presents two historiographical trends that offer different pictures of the history of forensic psychology. By comparing them, I argue for the need to take the broader perspective when explaining why and how forensic psychology arose in the nineteenth century. One reason is also that only this way we will be able to allocate and fully appreciate the work done by women. One of the female historical figures that can then enter the stage is Concepción Arenal. She is well-known in Spain as pioneer of feminism and social work. Nevertheless, her article on comparative psychology published 1886 has not yet been included in the historical accounts. In this French text she contested Ferri’s statement that criminals generally do not show any remorse for their crimes and, therefore, evidence a lack of moral consciousness. Arenal, on the other hand, argued that the first is neither a correct observation nor the latter a correct deduction. Offering examples based on her own experience, she points out that sometimes even the contrary is the case: a person with a high moral sense gets sentenced and loses her faith in justice. In her conclusion Arenal offers a sounded critique of the society of her time. Her psychological analysis is quite different from what at that time and now-a-days is understood by forensic (criminal) psychology. It is based on a healthy sense of realism and common sense, as well as extensive experience of the dynamics of corruption and a thorough understanding of the workings of human society that can teach us a lesson even today.

The crisis of confidence in the social sciences has many corollaries which impact our research practices. One of these is a push towards maximal and mechanical objectivity in quantitative research. This stance is reinforced by major journals and academic institutions that subtly yet certainly link objectivity with integrity and rigor. The converse implication of this may be an association between subjectivity and low quality. Subjectivity is one of qualitative methodology’s best assets, however. In qualitative methodology, that subjectivity is often given voice through reflexivity. It is used to better understand our own role within the research process, and is a means through which the researcher may oversee how they influence their research. Given that the actions of researchers have led to the poor reproducibility characterising the crisis of confidence, it is worthwhile to consider whether reflexivity can help improve the validity of research findings in quantitative psychology. In this report, we describe a combination approach of research: the data of a series of interviews helps us elucidate the link between reflexive practice and quality of research, through the eyes of practicing academics. Through our exploration of the position of the researcher in their research, we shed light on how the reflections of the researcher can impact the quality of their research findings, in the context of the current crisis of confidence. The validity of these findings is tempered, however, by limitations to the sample, and we advise caution on the part of our audience in their reading of our conclusions.

An estimated 15% of patients seen by neurologists have neurological symptoms, such as paralysis, tremors, dystonia, or seizures, that cannot be medically explained. For a long time, such patients were diagnosed as having conversion disorder (CD) and referred to psychiatrists, but for the last two decades or so, neurologists have started to pay more serious attention to this patient group. Instead of maintaining the commonly used label of conversion disorder – which refers to Freud’s idea that traumatic events can be converted into deviant behaviour – these neurologists use the term functional neurological disorder (FND) and explain that the problems are due to abnormal central nervous system functioning. The situation that some patients with medically unexplained neurological symptoms are diagnosed with CD and treated by psychiatrists while others are diagnosed with FND and stay under the control of neurologists provides a unique case for analysing how neurological and psychological explanations affect subjectivity. In this article, I compare patient reports from English-language websites from the past 15 years to find out how minds, bodies, brains, and selves act and interact in the accounts of both patient groups. I conclude that the change in label from CD to FND has not only influenced ideas of medically unexplained disorders, but also affected ideas of the self and the body; of self-control and accountability.

Finding causes is a central goal in psychological research. In this paper, I argue based on the interventionist approach to causal discovery that the search for psychological causes faces great obstacles. Psychological interventions are likely to be fat-handed: they change several variables simultaneously, and it is not known to what extent such interventions give leverage for causal inference. Moreover, due to problems of measurement, the degree to which an intervention was fat-handed, or more generally, what the intervention in fact did, is difficult to reliably estimate. A further complication is that the causal findings in psychology are typically made at the population level, and such findings do not allow inferences to individual-level causal relationships. I also discuss the implications of these problems for research, as well as various ways of addressing them, such as focusing more on the discovery of robust but non-causal patterns.

Throughout his life, Piaget’s biological theorizing was poorly understood. This is because, among other probable reasons, his proposals ran contrary to the rediscovery of Mendelian ideas regarding particulate inheritance (and thus also against the later Neo-Darwinian “modern synthesis”). However, his theory was one of the sources of embodied cognition by showing the sensorimotor origins of knowledge. Leaning on cybernetics, he also later tried to bring psychological and neurological models closer together. However, this cross-referencing never produced a dialogue. His perspective is also largely ab-sent from the history of biology. We present two main reasons to clarify this difficult history: a) Genetic Epistemology argued against reductionism at a time when few imagined that construction could offer a bridge notion to arrive at complex systems; b) this perspective raised transdisciplinary questions ad-dressed to specialists focused on their own fields, at a time when inter- and trans- disciplinary communication were uncommon. For Piaget, the different facets of the objects of biology and psychology could be studied from different angles of a common matrix, and this proposal encountered serious obstacles with biologists’ work agenda, as we will try to show.

The use of performance-enhancing drugs to study or work better is often called “cognitive enhancement” or “neuroenhancement” and sparked a debate between scholars from many disciplines. I argue that such behavior can better be subsumed under the more general category of “instrumental drug use”. This broader perspective allows understanding neuroenhancement better from the perspective of addiction medicine and public health and supports a more consistent drug policy. I also summarize the most important systematic reviews and individual surveys of nonmedical substance use to study or work better. Different definitions and methodologies limit the comparability of these studies. The unified approach of drug instrumentalization would partially solve such problems. Finally, prevalence studies from the 1960s to 1980s as well as anecdotal evidence since the late 19th century show that instrumental drug use is and has been for a long time a common phenomenon. It should thus also be investigated and treated accordingly.