Relational ethics and epistemology: The case for complementary first principles in psychology

Abstract

In psychology, where a natural science epistemology holds sway, relationships between the researcher and the researched are usually hierarchical and transactional, bound in procedural and legal ethics. This limited view of ethics fails to account for issues of power and privilege, as well as inequalities in economic and sociocultural structures. We argue for a more complete philosophy of science (and practice) consisting of complementary first principles—relational ethics and epistemology. Valuing relational ethics as a first principle means that how knowledge is produced and acted on is complementary in importance with what knowledge is produced. Collaborative relationships grounded in sincerity, reciprocity, and shared purpose become the basis for how psychological knowledge is produced, disseminated, and acted upon. We present two case studies to show how taking action in an ethical manner through relationships formed in the process of doing psychology deepens our conception and practice of psychology as human science.

Keywords

epistemology first principles interconnectedness philosophy relational ethics

While psychology has long privileged epistemology as its “first philosophy,” it has also endured several assaults against this orthodoxy (Cartwright, 1979; J. H. Liu & S. H. Liu, 1997). Historically, it has weathered these challenges by maintaining a commitment to a natural science epistemology at its centre, while spawning alternatives at the margins. Some of these margins adhere to different philosophies of science (e.g., social constructionism, see Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Gergen, 1985), and some of these have alternative, applied practices (e.g., community psychology, see Seedat et al., 2001). Some arise out of social movements (e.g., liberation, Martín-Baró, 1996; or decolonization, Smith, 1999), and some have originated in civilizations with autonomous culture and traditions (Yang, 2000). Drawing from these margins, and taking lessons from the (ongoing) history of their contestation with the centre (J. H. Liu & S. H. Liu, 1997), we argue that a first philosophy for psychology should consist of two complementary principles that form a more complete philosophy, of science and practice.

First, like Levinas (see Bergo, 2015), we argue for ethics as a first principle, and like many community psychology scholars (Fryer & Laing, 2008; Jahoda & Zeisel, 2002; Seedat et al., 2001) we focus attention on the relationships required for; the duties and responsibilities that emerge from; and the value and utility of knowledge produced as a consequence of research, teaching, and practice. We hold that an interconnectedness between people ought to drive relational ethics to be a first principle for psychology. This requires us to consider what knowledge is being sought and why, what are the issues of power and what is the balance of justice, and whose interests are being served.

Second, in contrast to traditions of analytical philosophy, where a clean separation is sought between schools of thought, we argue that relational ethics should complement, augment, and maintain a dialogical relationship with rather than replace epistemological considerations, as complementary and interdependent principles that in totality enable a more complete philosophy of science and practice for psychology.

The need for complementary first principles

The privileging of epistemology as the first principle in psychological research can be traced back to the 17th century Rationalist school of thought (J. H. Liu, 2017). The Cartesian divide of mind and body was core to the development of modern science, and of a natural science approach to social sciences, including psychology. Holding epistemology and, more particularly, privileging a natural science epistemology as the first principle determines what sort of knowledge is valued, and how it is supposed to be produced. This templated knowledge production is often engineered by an autonomous, and often self-benefiting researcher creating at the very least, issues of power and disparity, and at worst epistemological violence (Teo, 2010). Practices of ethics in this form of knowledge production are often thin; reduced to hierarchical, formulaic, and bureaucratic processes.

Current ethical processes of psychological research are largely derived from medical research, and thus legalistic ethics. Guidelines such as respect of persons (rights and dignity), beneficence and nonmaleficence (do good and no harm), fidelity and integrity (promise keeping and professional conduct), and justice (fairness) dictate the actions and invoke the authority of the researcher towards the participant (Miracle, 2016). These principles are transacted by the researcher on behalf of their institution, in an exchange relationship with the research participant. Consent is to be gained. Organizations should be cared for and protected. The researcher is responsible for a transparent, honest, and confidential process, and there ought to be a careful weighing by the researcher of the burdens and benefits of research. These normative ethical rules are steeped in individualism and rooted in a notion of individual human rights, without corresponding notions of reciprocal responsibilities (see Küng, 1997). Such normative rules primarily act to legitimate, to provide procedure for, and to police the research process as a scientific enterprise. Knowledge is to be extracted from individuals with consent. There is no corresponding injunction to provide benefits to communities from whom this knowledge is extracted. There is little that is relational in the contract between the researcher and the researched. The bureaucratic process is legalistic and transactional.

This might be adequate in some situations. For example, when a university ethics committee permits research in psychology on undergraduates through participant pools, besides protection from harm, the student studying psychology could reasonably be expected to learn something of value from participating in an experiment with informed consent. There is already a relationship in place between the student and the institution through enrolment, and the teaching and learning process. In this case, ethics as individual protection from harm, and an obligation to provide learning may suffice.

Problems arise, however, when research is taken to the field, and includes participants from more vulnerable and marginalized groups. For example, protection from harm is insufficient as an ethical principle to warrant the participation of homeless men whose health and safety are regularly at risk (King et al., 2016). The issue of who benefits from the research must be addressed (Smith, 1999), as well as issues of reciprocal obligations and/or responsibilities. A narrow version of ethics fails to account for issues of power and privilege, the historical impacts of colonization and globalization, and inequalities in economic and sociocultural structures. Such considerations become more important as interactions enter the context of the relationship between researchers and members of a community.

The purpose of this article is to present ethics and epistemology as complementary first principles for a more complete philosophy of science and practice (see J. H. Liu & S. H. Liu, 1997). We document an ongoing case study where it has been, and hopefully will continue to be, helpful; and a second case study that provides an extended account of how we enacted these principles in the past, with historical (arte)facts.

The need for a complementary set of first principles in psychology is made timely by our present situation. For the first time in history, the human species in all its cultural, political, and economic diversity is becoming aware of itself as an interconnected whole. The future is going to be fashioned by people with different needs and different value systems increasingly in contact with one another. They might have different assumptions about what ought to happen in the process of being a psychologist, and in doing research in psychology. For it to be of maximum value to humanity, psychological knowledge, production, and practice will benefit from being reflexively shaped through relational lenses, including its most comprehensively ethical lens of global consciousness.

This is described as an awareness of global interconnectedness, a respect for cultural heterogeneity, and a responsibility towards moral interdependence (J. H. Liu & Macdonald, 2016). Such consciousness is flexible and can be understood through invoking the concept of ren (仁), translated as human-heartedness: a quality without formal analytic definition that originates in Chinese philosophy (J. H. Liu, 2017). It is relationally defined in different situations to include qualities such as love, compassion, respect, and devotion (J. H. Liu, 2014). As we move out of psychology in the laboratory as a controlled transaction between the researcher and human participants, and into a more fully interconnected world of actions and consequences, the qualities of human-heartedness can be shown to be beneficial to the researcher and the communities they are working with.

Taking up a position of global consciousness as researchers will mean a shift from seeing ethics as procedural, to ethics as appropriately (i.e., situationally) relational (see J. H. Liu & Macdonald, 2016), and aspirational (J. H. Liu, 2017). Relational ethics “requires researchers to act from our hearts and minds, acknowledge our interpersonal bonds to others, and to take responsibility for actions and their consequences” (Ellis, 2007, p. 3). Such relational ethics is compatible with the Aristotelian concept of Phronesis, the sense of practical wisdom reliant on understandings of what is good, and how best to act ethically and with integrity (Flyvbjerg, 2001). Phronesis can be understood as a “philosophy of engagement” (Flyvbjerg, 2001, p. 286) that cultivates practices of relational ethics based on reciprocal respect, dignity, and connectedness within the research relationship, and in the communities in which research takes place (Ellis, 2007). These ethics are ways of engaging with knowledge production that comes about through collaborative relationships negotiated in different social and cultural contexts (J. H. Liu & Macdonald, 2016), which may change at different points in time as new things emerge (Frank, 2004). Phronesis and human-heartedness represent the deep wisdom of philosophical masters from vastly different places, coming together today as global consciousness.

Valuing relational ethics as a first principle alongside epistemology in research means that how knowledge is produced and how it is acted on, is complementary in importance and augments what knowledge is produced. As Ellis (2007) argues, we should “hold relational concerns as high as research [concerns] and . . . strive to leave the communities, participants, and [ourselves] better off at the end of the research than they were at the beginning” (p. 25). A phronetic approach to research is centred on addressing issues that matter to both local and global communities, doing research in ways that are meaningful, and (where relevant) that produces desirable change (Flyvbjerg, 2004).

The philosophical basis for complementary first principles

Modern science-based psychology originated in Europe in the late 19th century when physics and chemistry were the darlings of scientific societies. This origin at a time when natural sciences were in the process of discovering laws for fundamental aspects of the universe has led psychology into a history of physics envy: it has regularly adopted a reductionist philosophy of science insufficient for its own discipline (J. H. Liu & S. H. Liu, 1997). From the logical positivism of the behaviourists, to the mechanistic reductionism of Descartes and of empiricists still widely accepted today, psychology’s dominant philosophy of science is generally unable to encompass culture, cultural belief systems, and societal change—those things created by intentional human action with unanticipated consequences that subsequently form the ground for any inferences about microcausality.

Because anything done by a person is influenced by so many moving parts (like bits and pieces of culture or technology), it is indeterminate according to any one cause or number of causes. Psychology, after more than a century, is far from discovering anything that approaches the status of natural law. To deal with the complexity of its subject matter, psychology has become a method-bound discipline, with strict rules about how to make valid inferences. However, despite this sophistication in quantitative and experimental methods, psychology has found its Holy Grail of discovering natural laws for human behaviour to be perpetually out of reach. Rather than modify its philosophy, and its philosophy of science, it regularly turns to new methods and methodology as a panacea for its philosophical inadequacies (for its latest crisis, reproducibility, see Shrout & Rodgers, 2018; for a case history of these crises, see Cartwright, 1979, and J. H. Liu & S. H. Liu, 1997).

By using reductionist methods and methodology, and decomposing its subject into variables, psychologists have produced a large body of empirical findings across a wide range of human settings. These legitimately constitute scientific observations of many phenomena of interest. Present-day psychology is a catalogue of tendencies, of probabilities that variables influence one another, moderated by circumstances and mediated by intervening psychological or sociological processes. It has not been able to integrate these tendencies into comprehensive causal theories. Rather, the field is structured by overarching tendencies such as: (a) broad bandwidth theories (e.g., personality theories, like the Big Five), which tend to have small predictive utility across a range of settings; (b) myriad microtheories that have predictive utility or explanatory power in small domains of utility; and (c) even the best of these are circumscribed by culture and class: that is, psychology works best on the populations from which it was derived, that is, on White, educated people from industrialized rich democratic (WEIRD) societies (Henrich et al., 2010).

Psychology does not have causal formulae or procedures for success, but rather offers advice on how to improve chances for success (or avoid failure) in a given context. Psychology is therefore primarily useful as a body of knowledge that can assist a person or group to figure out how to improve their chances to accomplish an objective in a given situation. Because the most basic rule of psychology as a body of knowledge is “it depends,” it is most helpful when communicated in a contingent manner, through ongoing dialogue with practitioners or policy makers (Tebes et al., 2014).

Unlike other critics of the mainstream, we do not see these overarching tendencies of the field as the basis for either contentment or dismay. These tendencies are what is to be expected from a contemporary philosophy of science like Bhaskar’s (2008) critical realism: this does not expect 1 to 1 mappings of cause-and-effect in the domain of human science. Bhaskar’s theory of a stratified ontology involves three layers of reality “out there”: the observed reality (of phenomena, for example, observations generated by an experiment); an intermediate layer of the actual (the conditions of reality operant for a given society at a particular historical moment, including institutional forms and cultural tendencies, that influence surface observations); and a layer of generative mechanisms, or “powers,” deeper than the manifest layers of the actual and phenomenal that are truly causal.

We as social scientists should not expect to be able to move from observations of phenomena to their causes in a facile manner. These only come into view momentarily through the layer of the actual. According to critical realism (Bhaskar, 2008), the experiment is not operating in a closed system that isolates cause-to-effect relations. Its outcomes can only be realized through the operation of the layer of the actual, including mediation or moderation from those features of culture and society forming the institutional and ideological ground that participants within and authors of the experiment act upon (Buch-Hansen, 2005). This doesn’t invalidate the experiment as a method, but it does put it into a context where results need to be interpreted next to other kinds of observations, and the theories that inform them. Otherwise, there will be epistemic violence (Teo, 2010), and/or egregious errors of observation and interpretation (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

The advantage of critical realism as a philosophy of science is that it does not reinscribe the Cartesian dualism that characterizes the epistemological conflict between mainstream philosophy of (natural) science and social constructionism. Critical realism accepts that reality is ontologically “out there” but refuses to accept a simple approach to theorizing about “causal” relations observed in that reality or that observations of this reality are equally subjective (or biased in the same way). This philosophy can be of utility in bridge-building across domains that constructionist philosophies can add little value to (like evolutionary science).

For example, breakthrough theorizing on gene-culture coevolution by Richerson et al. (2016) summarizes growing evidence that the human propensity for co-operation cannot be explained without invoking group-based (as well as individual-level) selection (see also Choi & Bowles, 2007). Hence, even human genetics, the current “ultimate cause” of human psychology, is likely to have been historically contingent on selection based on group-level factors, most importantly institutions and their normative features that produce co-operation between self-interested individuals. There might be a “selfish gene,” but human collectives have evolved to manage these tendencies through collective action that is contingent on effective communications and adaptive social norms (Ostrom, 1998). This is the latest nail in the coffin for Cartesian reductionism, a search for the atomistic causes of human behaviour. Any feature of a person’s psychology affecting their tendencies for co-operation with others will likely be expressed in a manner dependent on the institutional norms in place for the group(s) or culture that they have been socialized into (see Henrich et al., 2010, for examples). Thus, according to a leading edge of evolutionary science, the social dilemma of co-operation cannot be solved without the normative influence of groups and culture (Richerson et al., 2016). This could be viewed as part of the layer of the actual in critical realism.

This type of evolutionary science supports the structural side of nonreductionist philosophies of science like Bhaskar’s (2008). It is the epistemological complement to moral philosophy, as articulated by Aristotle, Confucius, or Kant. We argue that moral philosophy is required as a complement to epistemology for theorists like Bhaskar (2008) to realize the “critical” in critical realism. According to Bhaskar, individuals have agency, an agency that is realized in a possibility space created/constrained by social structures (e.g., cultural institutions and institutional norms). He argued that “the role of agency is to reproduce or transform structures” (2008, p. 62; see also Buch-Hansen, 2005). Thus, there is no commitment to the determinism that plagued early Enlightenment philosophers like Descartes and that continues to trouble mainstream psychology today.¹ Instead, there is the understanding that people have agency to either go with the flow; be predicted by the dominant variables structuring their lives; or they can resist, and attempt to transform these structures. If they succeed, like a Gandhi or a Newton, their actions can in time transform the layer of the actual, which will affect future observations of behaviour.

Moral philosophy in an open system like Bhaskar’s (2008) unfolds in time, and through intentionality. One can observe social structures at a moment in time; document human agency at a following moment in time attempting to change these structures; and then document the consequences of the success or failure of these efforts on individuals, groups, and the cultural system after that (see Archer, 1996). We are academics inhabiting social systems in which the dominant form of ethics is structured by a culture of individualism and institutions associated with the medical profession. Reflexively, the remainder of this article can be read as an attempt to envision and describe how to transform these structures into something more suitable for human-hearted science practitioners, and in tune with a philosophy of critical realism.

We begin by referencing Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy in order to avoid the trap of Cartesian dualism that implicitly permeates psychology today. J. H. Liu (2017) writes:

According to Kant, our experience of anything, from causal behaviour to logical properties, is conditioned by the limitations of our biology, and this precludes pure reason from being able to provide a metaphysics that does not end in antimonies (e.g., contradictions). Similar conditions limit any system of morals or code of ethics. Kant’s solution is to argue for the importance of practical reason—the use of reason to derive regulative principles that can be applied to daily lives. What is required for ethics is to develop postulates about ultimate reality. These cannot be proven according to scientific standards of falsification, but nevertheless provide practical reasons for believing in ethical and moral orders. (p. 141)

Moral philosophy reflects a system of values, and value has an ontological status that cannot be reduced to empirical observations, emotive responses, or subjective preferences (Tillich, 1951). Values describe worldviews and justify a system of ethics. Ethics cannot be derived from epistemology. They are not true or false, they reflect a moral order rooted in values (hearkening back to phronesis). In totality, they are also an important aspect of the layer of the actual in human societies. It is obvious today that the practical postulates that Kant proposed are based on a Christian moral order (belief in free will, existence of God, and the immortality of the soul) rather than one that is universal. The current system of ethics for research is similarly rooted in a Western world view and moral order, but where individualism and a commitment to universal human rights (Inglehart & Baker, 2000) may have altered the practical postulates dominant in Kant’s day.

The philosophical stance adopted in this paper might be considered as something new to many readers. It derives from an East Asian worldview, whose cosmology is rooted in the dialectic relationship between two fundamentally different, but complementary universal principles (yin–yang; see J. H. Liu, 2017; J. H. Liu & S. H. Liu, 1997; Nisbett et al., 2001). This is a fundamentally different worldview compared to the unidirectional causality associated with believing in one God as the maker of Creation. According to Ji et al. (2010), “it is the dynamics among the elements, rather than the elements themselves, that serve as the primary units of analysis” (p. 156). In East Asian society, human thought, emotion, and behaviour are regarded as the products of relationships (Hwang, 1987), rather than being the outputs of a sovereign individual (see Markus & Kitayama, 1991). In relationalism, the basic unit of society is a pair bond between two persons with reciprocal obligations towards one another (e.g., father–son, ruler–minister, wife–husband, etc.). Morality is realized in relationships, as opposed to being idealized in some universal form (like Kant’s categorical imperative, or in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

Finally, in Confucianism, human beings are thought to be endowed with ren (仁), or human-heartedness, as a birth right. It is their duty to cultivate this form of relational empathy or compassion over a lifetime. This practical postulate is central as a regulative principle because it simultaneously asserts the original goodness of human nature without providing an analytical definition of how it is to be realized in a given situation. J. H. Liu (2017) argues that this lack of a priori definitions allows it to be flexibly applied in a benevolent manner. Such a stand can facilitate intercultural dialogue (S. H. Liu, 2000).

Returning to understandings of phronesis (the ability to discern how and why to act as a good person), we show how holding relational ethics and epistemology as complementary first principles can be operationalized and inform practice. Phronesis is not the same as ren, but the two are interconnected. Holism is not about homogeneity, but identifying forms of interconnectedness (J. H. Liu, 2017). Holding moral interdependence as central means that we neither see the world as socially constructed, nor as universally and objectively understood. Rather, the world is best known through our activity with other people in particular places and times. Placing emphasis on relationships gives focus to the obligations and responsibilities of care within research and practice, requiring us to consider the value and utility of knowledge production. Flyvbjerg (2001) argues that “the goal of phronetic research is to produce input to the ongoing social dialogue and praxis in a society, rather than to generate ultimate, unequivocally verified knowledge” (p. 139). Thus, we must consider the function of particular knowledge, how it is acquired, whose purpose it serves, who benefits, and in turn these considerations shape how knowledge is to be produced. A phronetic planning approach in the social sciences is intentional activity grounded on these considerations of function, acquisition, purpose, and benefits. Privileging these considerations in research collaborations ensures that decisions are based on value judgements inherent in relational ethics. They guide selection of methodologies best suited to specific research contexts, as well as adjudicating between considerations of instrumental gain versus those of possibly inflicting epistemological violence.

Case studies can be useful exemplars of relational ethics and epistemology operating as complementary first principles, and of how human-heartedness and phronesis can be theorized about and observed in practice. The case study highlights the complexities of relationships within research processes and produces meaningful context-dependent knowledge that leads to higher levels of learning, gained through experience rather than rule-governed theory (Flyvbjerg, 2006).

Case study 1: Creating and documenting a new alliance for countering violent extremism

For our first exemplar we use the case study of a forum consisting of government agencies, civil society, community leaders, and us as researchers, formed to care for the very small number of individuals under the supervision of the Department of Corrections in New Zealand whose crimes or behaviors have implications towards violent extremist ideologies.

Agenda setting

First there must be reason to come together. These reasons are about issues or grievances in society rather than about answering a research question or addressing a hypothesis. Research based on ideas of phronesis, human-heartedness, and community psychology is issue-driven and comes about from a concern to address social concerns (Flyvbjerg, 2004). This group was formed around an ethics of care to support specific individuals and their families in the correctional landscape, to work towards broader social cohesion by engaging communities to develop bespoke strategies and processes to counter violent extremism, and to address an absence of a New Zealand-centric knowledge base in this area.

Crucially, the initial impetus for this forum came from the Department of Corrections, which recognized a need for community and academic input to manage a new area of potentially harmful action and belief. The people brought together for the first meeting were not closely connected, but were selected because of their positive reputation, either in a relevant community, in academia, or because they were institutional powerholders. Bringing people deliberately together for this purpose and creating this setting worked to produce “incubators of relationships that yield social capital . . . and [in turn] productive networks of institutional relations” (Perkins et al., 2002, p. 46). Some important actions emerging from this process were made possible because of the commitment of the major powerholder in this situation (Department of Corrections) to make changes to its operating procedures as a consequence of communicative input from forum members. In this instance, power can be seen as constructive and productive, exercised as an asset (Flyvbjerg, 2001), which works to cultivate moral interdependence between group members to produce context-dependent knowledge in order to enact positive and informed change. From the perspective of critical realism (Bhaskar, 2008), it is a visible manifestation of the layer of the actual.

Undertaking “action research” (Kemmis et al., 2013) and producing knowledge and change as a consequence of issues or grievances in society works towards balancing the power relationships inherent in research processes, making provision for justice and producing outputs that serve the interests of, and increase volume to, the voices of the researched. In Case 1, the research founded on relational ethics was heterarchically organized. Heterarchical organization emphasizes interpersonal processes that promote engagement with multiple stakeholders with whom authority is shared, and accountability to one another fashions coproductions (Tebes et al., 2014). Such an approach works to avoid epistemological violence (where research is framed and interpreted within the understandings and priorities of the researcher only and there is little relationship, and therefore little responsibility of care, to participants beyond procedural ethics).

Identifying issues or grievances as important created an opportunity for our initial group to come together. This very starting point began with forming relationships rather than seeking to produce knowledge. This formation was intended for members to be of mutual benefit to each other, and where experts in different areas could converge to contribute to a broader social good. Coming together for collective action for this common goal meant that we could identify the diversity of members’ priorities and needs, even though group cohesion and partnerships were not yet realized. At the beginning, relationships were established, values for the group identified, terms of references scoped, and identification made of who else needed to be at the table. Geographical location and hosting of future meetings were decided on to maximize participation and to increase financial accessibility. Members of government agencies with budgetary support flew to meetings in spaces provided by the university in order to reduce costs for community participants.

Establishing group norms

This relational work involved establishing trust through character and competence, and in demonstrating care and respect. The initial goal of the group was relationship formation or connecting with each other and moving that connection towards committed relationships with a common purpose (see Moreland & Levine, 1982). We negotiated the different social and cultural positions of the group members. Regular meetings were held, particular dress codes were implicitly adopted, and inclusive food practices and religious observances were woven into the fabric of the group’s being. Adopting heterarchical organization, attempts were made to dismantle destructive and traditional hierarchies about who can produce knowledge and inform action. This dismantling was attempted through valuing the different forms of expertise in the group and bringing this varying expertise to prominence at the appropriate points in time. Leadership was shared amongst group members at different stages of research processes. At times, this meant that power normally held by some of the government agencies was put aside, and entrenched systemic practices were able to be negotiated and changed.

An example of relational ethics driving research and practice was the suggestion of creating more in-depth advice about caring for Muslim prisoners. It was proposed that there needed to be more comprehensive access to halal food and prayer mats as well as greater flexibility around mealtimes and keeping food in cells during Ramadan. The group also pointed out issues with translation and communication with families, especially in terms of how privacy legislation was enforced, failing to account for communication protocols typical of collectivist cultures. Possibilities for national communication around these issues and provision of staff training opportunities were further suggested. Identification of these and suggested remediations were outside of the original terms of reference for the group (which was primarily around disengagement from extremist violence). However communications in the group were enough to reach a consensus that, for instance, genuinely respecting someone’s dietary requirements during the most important festival in their religious calendar was an important way to show respect for prisoners, hopefully building trust and higher levels of engagement with both the individual and their families within the correction systems. Flyvbjerg (2001) reminds us “that it is impossible to derive praxis from first principles and theory. Praxis has always been contingent on context-dependent judgement, on situational ethics” (p. 136).

Taking a phronetic and relational stance, by focusing on practical activity and knowledge in everyday situations and reflecting on values and interests, leads to a pragmatic and situationally dependent orientation to action (Flyvbjerg, 2004; Hwang, 1987). This orientation to action has created impetus to produce wider change in the same system that could be seen as a preventative measure against future potential violent extremism, through developing more trusting and engaged relationships between prisoners, their families, and the department of corrections. They illustrate agency as a crucial aspect of critical realism’s analysis of systems change (Buch-Hansen, 2005) and show that actions that stem from research are not necessarily a product or consequence of research outputs, but are produced from the very process by which the research was eventually agreed on.

Documenting our experiences as an expression of group values

Therefore, knowledge production and action can be seen to coexist through valuing expertise and using knowledge that is produced by the whole group to make changes. As researchers we became chroniclers of knowledge production. Marie Jahoda discusses this in terms of making the invisible visible (Fryer, 1986). Through minute taking and reviewing case studies we noted that the knowledge exchanges that occurred within our regular meetings were changing actual practices, and that this was a fluent and ongoing process. Such changes happened both within group meetings and outside of them, through us gathering together and communicating. By staying close to each other and the experiential data we were recording, we were able to capture important insights, solve unplanned issues, and develop inquiry. Relationships between different members were drawn upon to provide expertise and assistance in particular circumstances, and at times in other spheres overlapping with the mandate of our group.

For example, one community member presented to high-ranking security professionals and government officials in a private forum, while another was part of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade delegation to an international conference on regional terrorism. As a group we decided what the academic research direction should be. We looked at what benefits we wanted to achieve with the research, and what value it would have to the communities (both civil and government) we were engaged with. This forced an interrogation of what function our knowledge production would serve, and epistemological considerations of how it would be designed and managed, who would collect the data, and how the analysis should be undertaken. For us, the epistemological framing of our research was simultaneously one of relational ethics. Formal research practices were at times managed from the group, through the academy, into communities, and then fed back to the group.

Building social capital

Each member of a group holds both their own reputation and that of the collective, bringing into practice reputation as social capital (Yamagishi et al., 1999). Actions within and outside of the group reflected both on individuals and on us as a collective. Rather than producing knowledge to bolster our reputations and employing a hypothetico-deductive model suited to the publication structures of our discipline, we invested ourselves in a research process that laid social capital as its foundation (see Putnam, 2000). The social capital built from the interconnectedness within this group was also able to buffer oversights or mistakes that threatened reputational damage both for individuals and the group. Drawing on this social capital to counter threats to reputation for all group members further meant that we were able to review our goals and aspirations, and check to ensure we were still operating within a framework of moral interdependence and justice. Teo (2010) reminds us that we should always be mindful of the “context of discovery” and to “look at the underlying cultural, political, economic and personal interest [to] identify the social origins of hypotheses and theories” (p. 300). By holding relational ethics as important as epistemological considerations we were able to shape the productions of knowledge that navigated the context of discovery thoughtfully.

Reflexive growth

This is fundamental for social science research and practice and the relationships and the knowledge they produce is within an organic system versus an analytical system. It is at the centre of the educational project of lifelong growth to cultivate human-heartedness (J. H. Liu, 2014). Growth is reflexive and comes from nurture, guidance, development, obligations, compassion, openness, mentoring, and capacity building that all members of the group brought to the table. There is a flexible responsiveness to change and reflexivity around the relationships and direction of the group. We found that there were central figures in the group, but as organizational roles and personal circumstances changed and when people left and new people were added, there was both continuity and change. As new situations emerged, we were able to draw upon the trust, reciprocity, sincerity, and common purpose that we had built up as part of group history.

Case study 2: Academic organization building and relational ethics

The phenomenon documented in the above case study, where some fairly significant actions took place as a consequence of communications and planning for research and not as the outcome of research results (e.g., a publication), might not be an isolated phenomenon. Decisions and actions affecting the wellbeing of people may happen regularly as part of the process of doing research and presenting it. But we as researchers may not be attuned to documenting these instances because we are socialized into an analytical philosophy of science in which the expected causal chain is to produce a research report and then have that research report affect policy or action. Our first case study was also of a less common “insider account” (Humphrey, 2007) of cross-sectoral collaboration, involving transdisciplinary group formation processes that many readers might not be able to see in their everyday lives.

Therefore, we provide a second account of how the process of doing research provided concrete outcomes as a consequence of social capital and relationship building in a more typical academic situation. Through retrospective analysis, from an “insider–outsider” perspective (Humphrey, 2007), we add to our initial account of how a fuller philosophy and philosophy of science could help academic psychologists develop as practitioners of human science, in this case through the more typical output of publications, and the less commonly articulated virtue of character building (ren).

To better understand this account, we need the interpellation of hierarchical relationalism (J. H. Liu, 2015), part of the cultural belief system of East Asia and other collectivist societies (like Indonesia). This complements the heterarchical heuristic of Tebes et al. (2014) discussed previously. J. H. Liu (2015) describes East Asian societies as “containers of cultural capital consisting of a special moral and ethical form of high-power distance collectivism” (p. 84); this involves reciprocal and ethically inscribed, but unequal relationships between high- and low-powered individuals in stable social relations. This is an aspect of the layer of the actual for the majority world (Henrich et al., 2010), contrasting with the value system of freedom and equality implicit in Tebes et al.’s (2014) formulation on the layer of the actual in the United States.

An academic agenda leading to relationship building

Unlike that in our first case study, the initial phase of relationship building was not driven by an institutional agenda. It was just the everyday occurrence of two colleagues connecting at a conference: Dr. Hamdi Muluk of the University of Indonesia invited Dr. James H. Liu to visit his home in Jakarta in 2002 following a brief but rich encounter at the International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology’s 16th International Congress in Yogyakarta. Liu was gifted with the experience of hearing gentle prayers to Allah five times a day in a peaceful household, including during the predawn hours. It opened for him a vista for global consciousness, for the first time connecting him to people whose daily lives were permeated by ritual expressions of religious devotion.

The social capital formed through this meeting could be regarded as a fairly normal consequence of activity in the social roles of teacher and researcher. But going beyond this more deeply into implications, J. H. Liu and King (in press) describe it as “relational serendipity”—a chance encounter between two individuals of like mind and good intentions, who have the agency and good fortune/fate² to grasp opportunities that unfold before them and to collaborate in work that expands to encompass a wider network of relationships that lead, in time, to institutional change.

Years after their first meeting, J. H. Liu as editor-in-chief of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology (AJSP) noted that the literature on Islamist terrorism had very few authors from Muslim countries. He approached Muluk, one of the leading psychological researchers on this topic in Indonesia to organize submissions for a special forum on terrorism in Indonesia for AJSP (see J. H. Liu & Woodward, 2013; Milla et al., 2013; Muluk et al., 2013; Putra & Sukabdi, 2013). The qualities of human-heartedness required in this instance were effort and sincerity on both sides (being dutiful in exerting maximum effort is central to ren at work, whereas harbouring good intentions is central to all human-hearted endeavours). In terms of hierarchical ethical obligations: patience (a form of benevolence) was especially incumbent on the higher powered role of the editor, and perseverance (a form of loyalty and respect) especially on the part of the submitting authors (see J. H. Liu, 2014, 2015). These are stable, role-based relational ethics, sharply differentiated by power, with none of the give-and-take and shifting of role responsibilities we described previously (as heterarchical).

At the time, very few social psychologists from Indonesia were publishing in international journals, and the successful completion of this special issue enhanced the academic reputation of these authors. Reputation, as theorized by Yamagishi and Matsuda (2002), is a tradeable asset: everyone involved in this enterprise benefitted; notably in terms of career advancement for the Indonesians. One publication in this special issue contained interviews with the notorious Bali bombers (Milla et al., 2013), providing a benefit to a wider international community of scholars who would not otherwise have had access to this research. These authors were located at the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), which together with the University of Indonesia in Jakarta are the two most prestigious institutions for psychology in Indonesia. Coincidentally, the inaugural editor-in-chief of AJSP, and past-president of the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP), Uichol Kim, was simultaneously working in Southeast Asia to establish the Asian Association of Indigenous and Cultural Psychology (AAICP, with a base at UGM). This synchronicity of influence from two high-powered East Asian academics specializing in culture encouraged many Indonesians to join the AASP where Kim and J. H. Liu are active (being past presidents, and former editors-in-chief of its flagship journal). This has in turn shaped Indonesian social psychology in a direction it might not otherwise have taken. The operation of face and favour has been theorized in a classic paper by Hwang (1987), and this retrospective account may be interpellated through the lens of hierarchical relationalism, where interpersonal relationships of higher and lower powered people spread their influence to wider circles (just as in classical Confucian theory, especially as articulated by Mencius).

Academic consequences of reputation

Through the continuing efforts of Muluk and Dr. Mirra Noor Milla, who continue to maintain high profiles in this area, social psychologists were invited to develop counter-terrorism research involving convicted terrorists by the Department of Corrections in Indonesia. This has helped to strengthen links between social psychologists, practitioners, and institutional authorities in an area of importance for the societal wellbeing of Indonesia. Mirra Noor Milla is particularly effective at connecting people on the ground: her qualities of humility, kindness, and steadfastness are such that one of the prison guards of Ali Imron (in jail for life for his role in the Bali bombings) thought she was his wife. This was because she brought food to him when she was doing interviews. Such forms of human-hearted interconnectedness are central to research coming out of this program.

As a result of this Indonesian special issue a junior member of Muluk’s team completed an internship with Arie Kruglanski, a world-leading social psychology researcher on countering violent extremism at the University of Maryland. A second special issue of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology, this time on countering violent extremism, included a new generation of young researchers from Indonesia (see Hakim & Mujahidah, 2020; Milla et al., 2020; Muluk et al., 2020; Yustisia et al., 2020). The widening of this circle should not be considered unusual. It is putting into writing a description of reputational consequences following from an agentic and reflexive approach to doing social science research. Muluk’s status today, as a professor of psychology with considerable publications at the most prestigious university in Indonesia, gives him considerable social capital and agency in a society that values rank. The actual impact of his and other people’s efforts in ongoing attempts at counterterrorism will depend on the quality and character of the research done, and the quality and calibre of the relationships between social scientists, NGOs, and officials in Indonesia.

An academic agenda leading to relationship building and organizational outcomes

When J. H. Liu and Muluk met in 2002, there were fewer than a handful of Indonesians in AASP: now there are more than 50 active members, and almost 100 in total. When the Indonesians hosted AASP’s 10th biennial conference in 2013, they attracted around 1000 academics. Currently, there are plans afoot to formalize the relationship between AASP and the Indonesian Association of Social Psychology. The respectful, trusting, and mutually supportive relationships between James H. Liu, Hamdi Muluk, Mirra Noor Milla, Faturochman, and Moh Abdul Hakim cannot be said to have been causal (there are many other influences on any significant action/s including Uichol Kim’s efforts), but they contributed to the organizational outcome that Indonesia has become an important member community of the Asian Association of Social Psychology. Through AASP and AAICP conferences, the Indonesians now regularly meet with their neighbors in Malaysia and the Philippines. These are all places where a more culturally informed social psychology has a chance to thrive.

Indonesian social psychology is active and vital. The Javanese, as inheritors of an old sophisticated culture, have perhaps a culturally inscribed interest in culture and psychology; but over the course of many visits from J. H. Liu and from Kim (e.g., keynote addresses, workshops, seminars, etc.), the Indonesian Association of Social Psychology has become increasingly invested in indigenous psychology, and in developing psychology as a human science. These are particular choices from a field of probability, where a specific phenomenon could be seen to emerge contingent on a larger field of possibilities (see J. H. Liu et al., 2014, for a general theory of societal change drawing on critical realism). The Indonesian Association of Social Psychology published a social psychology textbook in Bahasa Indonesian, written by and for Indonesians, for the first time in 2018 (Pitaloka et al., 2018). Previously, everyone used North American texts (in English) for teaching undergraduate social psychology, a rather poor choice in a country where young people struggle with English. This textbook not only introduces mainstream ideas, but also illustrates these with local applications and examples, in an attempt to stimulate a more critical and lived understanding of social psychology for its readers. The impact of this textbook will again depend on its quality and the quality of teaching, learning, scholarship, and application it stimulates among Indonesian undergraduates. It is hard to say what “caused” the making of the text, but it would be safe to say that the relationship between Indonesian social psychologists and AASP was inspirational for the process. In Bhaskar’s (2008) terms, this textbook is a result of activity emerging as phenomena, out of the layer of the actual, that will be responsible for influencing future observations. Whether this textbook results in a social psychology that is more relationally engaged, more culturally embedded, and of more practical value to Indonesians will, as always, be indeterminate, and realized in time by myriad acts of collective and individual agency.

Conclusion

Our two first-hand accounts illustrate important points about ethics as a first principle of research. First, we can point to the importance of providing first-hand narratives of how an ethically interconnected research process, following rules of human-heartedness and phronesis can contribute to societal wellbeing. In the first case, communications led to actions affecting the wellbeing of Muslim prisoners in a New Zealand corrections system. We were able to provide a first-hand (insider) account of these outcomes because we were involved in cross-sectoral collaboration, driven by an agenda set by the government institution in charge of managing these outcomes.

In the second case, where there were primarily academics involved, we could provide a first-hand account for academic outcomes only, because we were insider-outsiders to Indonesia. Whether these research processes benevolently affected the rehabilitation and wellbeing of prisoners incarcerated for terrorism in Indonesia or resulted in a more culturally oriented psychology curriculum, would require a different set of authors for testimonial.

In both cases, the agendas for action were set by powerholders, by departments of corrections in both countries, and by the Indonesian Association of Social Psychology in the second case. Concrete outcomes can be narrated as being influenced to a significant degree by relationships formed in the process of doing research, relationships that can change institutional rules or produce representational objects that become part of the “layer of the actual” (Bhaskar, 2008). These objects may then be employed to enable (rather than cause) future consequences.

In both cases, there was commitment to human-heartedness (including respect for culture and indispensable cultural differences), which was globally conscious (J. H. Liu & Macdonald, 2016) and involved phronesis (Flyvbjerg, 2004). In both cases, human-heartedness also meant that we liked each other and liked working together. We were able to actualize this human-heartedness, the capacity for good held by each of us through exercising phronesis; acting as a well-intentioned person in research and practice. In both case studies, there were power imbalances. In the corrections case, the department was the sole actor with the power to determine institutional rules for prisoners; community members could only affect the wellbeing of prisoners through the provision of advice and social support. In the academic case, J. H. Liu had the power to accept, reject, or demand revision of academic articles submitted, and the Indonesians were those who had the power to change behaviour for members of their academic association. Narrating these power imbalances as part of relationship formation can be read as not only cultivating human-heartedness, they are also part of forming ethically inscribed networks for a more overtly globally conscious society.

We circulated this paper to both the New Zealand and Indonesian groups we were involved with and amended our work in accordance with their comments. Indonesian scholar Mirra Noor Milla commented:

James H. Liu’s endeavour has continuously helped potential young scholars with limited experience in several important research topics. This trust-based relationship has facilitated collaborations, shared valuable knowledge, and widened access for the underrepresented population. Subsequently, the connection has boosted researchers’ self-efficacy for future research and development. Without these relations, without the trust-based network whom James has built, this kind of success story will never happen. (Personal communication, April 25, 2019)

If academic researchers in the developed world become more regularly committed to supporting the development of a psychology attuned to the wellbeing and habitus of their colleagues in the developing world, it becomes more possible for psychology to make a difference. If academic researchers were more regularly committed to working with government agencies and community members to provide a forum for communication and support in areas of mutual interest, bureaucratic practices that negatively affect a society could be quickly identified and remedied. We think that it would be healthy if more members of the discipline of psychology regularly and reflexively provided first-hand accounts such as these. A philosophy of relational ethics shows how we can make a difference in our everyday lives as academics and as human beings, and encourages us to take agency where we stand, instead of just criticizing the inadequacies of the mainstream. In acting as human agents for change, we help to bring the critical in critical realism to life.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank our New Zealand colleagues, as well as Moh. Abdul Hakim and Mirra Milla for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Veronica Hopner

Notes

Author biographies

Veronica Hopner is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at Massey University. Her primary research interest is in the psychology of security with a focus on social justice. Recent publications include (with D. Hodgetts, S. Carr, R. Ball, N. Nelson, & K. Chamberlain), “Introduction to the Special Section on the Psychology of Security” in International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation (2020) and (with K. Chamberlain), “Commodifying Femininity: The On-line Offering of Breast Augmentation to New Zealand Women” in Journal of Gender Studies (2020).

James H. Liu is a professor of psychology at Massey University, expert in social, cross-cultural, and political psychology; his main specialization is in social representations of history. He is a former president of the Asian Association of Social Psychology, and currently is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Political Psychology. Recent publications include “Neo-Confucian Epistemology and Chinese Philosophy: For Actioning Psychology as a Human Science” in Asian Journal of Social Psychology (2017) and (with R. J. Zhang, A. K. Y. Leung, H. Gil de Zúñiga, C. Gastardo-Conaco, V. Vasiutynskyi, & L. Kus-Harbord), “Empirical Correlates of Cosmopolitan Orientation: Etiology and Functions in a Worldwide Representative Sample” in Political Psychology (2020).

References

Archer

M. S.

(1996). Culture and agency: The place of culture in social theory (Rev. ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Bergo

(2015). Emmanuel Levinas. In Zalta

E. N.

(Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2015 ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/levinas/

Bhaskar

(2008). A realist theory of science. Verso.

Buch-Hansen

(2005). Critical realism in the social sciences: An interview with Roy Bhaskar. Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 6(2), 59–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2005.9672913

Cartwright

(1979). Contemporary social psychology in historical perspective. Social Psychology Quarterly, 42(1), 82–93. https://doi.org/10.2307/3033880

Choi

J. K.

Bowles

(2007). The coevolution of parochial altruism and war. Science, 318(5850), 636–640. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1144237

Denzin

N. K.

Lincoln

Y. S.

(2011). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. SAGE.

Ellis

(2007). Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics in research with intimate others. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(1), 3–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800406294947

Flyvbjerg

(2001). Making social science matter ( Sampson

, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.

10.

Flyvbjerg

(2004). Phronetic planning research: Theoretical and methodological reflections. Planning Theory & Practice, 5(3), 283–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/1464935042000250195

11.

Flyvbjerg

(2006). Five misunderstandings about case-study research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12(2), 219–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800405284363

12.

Frank

(2004). Moral non-fiction: Life writing and children’s disability. In Eakin

P. J.

(Ed.), The ethics of life writing (pp. 174–194). Cornell University Press.

13.

Fryer

(1986). The social psychology of the invisible: An interview with Marie Jahoda. New Ideas in Psychology, 4(1), 107–118.

14.

Fryer

Laing

(2008). Community psychologies: What are they? What could they be? Why does it matter? A critical community psychology approach. Australian Community Psychologist, 20(2), 7–15.

15.

Gergen

K. J.

(1985). The social constructionist movement in modern psychology. American Psychologist, 40(3), 266–275. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.40.3.266

16.

Hakim

M. A.

Mujahidah

D. R.

(2020). Social context, interpersonal network, and identity dynamics: A social psychological case study of terrorist recidivism. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 23(1), 3–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12349

17.

Henrich

Heine

S. J.

Norenzayan

(2010). The weirdest people in the world. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–135. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X

18.

Humphrey

(2007). Insider-outsider: Activating the hyphen. Action Research, 5(1), 11–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750307072873

19.

Hwang

K.-K.

(1987). Face and favor: The Chinese power game. American Journal of Sociology, 92(4), 944–974. https://www-jstor-org-443.web.bisu.edu.cn/stable/2780044?seq=1

20.

Inglehart

Baker

W. E.

(2000). Modernization, cultural change, and the persistence of traditional values. American Sociological Review, 65(1), 19–49. https://doi.org/10.2307/2657288

21.

Jahoda

Zeisel

(2002). Marienthal: The sociography of an unemployed community. Transaction.

22.

L. J.

Lee

Guo

(2010). The thinking styles of Chinese people. In Bond

M. H.

(Ed.), Oxford handbook of Chinese psychology (2nd ed., pp. 155–167). Oxford University Press.

23.

Kemmis

McTaggart

Nixon

(2013). The action research planner: Doing critical participatory action research. Springer Science & Business Media.

24.

King

Hodgetts

Rua

Te Whetu

(2016). Emplaced cultural practices through which homeless men can be Māori. In Peter

E. J.

Christensen

(Eds.), Indigenous homelessness: Perspectives from Canada, Australia and New Zealand (pp. 363–388). University of Manitoba Press.

25.

Küng

(1997). A global ethic for global politics and economics. Oxford University Press.

26.

Liu

J. H.

(2014). What Confucian philosophy means for Chinese and Asian psychology today: Indigenous roots for a psychology of social change. Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 8(2), 35–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/prp.2014.10

27.

Liu

J. H.

(2015). Globalizing indigenous psychology: An East Asian form of hierarchical relationalism with worldwide implications. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 45(1), 82–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12058

28.

Liu

J. H.

(2017). Neo-Confucian epistemology and Chinese philosophy: For auctioning psychology as a human science. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 20(2), 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12168

29.

Liu

J. H.

Fisher Onar

Woodward

(2014). Symbologies, technologies, and identities: Critical junctures theory and the multi-layered nation-state. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 43, 2–12. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2014.08.012

30.

Liu

J. H.

King

(in press). What is an appropriate philosophy of human science for 21st-century indigenous psychologies? In Ludwig

Koskinen

Mncube

Poliseli

Reyes-Galindo

(Eds.), Global epistemologies and philosophies of science. Routledge.

31.

Liu

J. H.

Liu

S. H.

(1997). Modernism, postmodernism, and neo-Confucian thinking: A critical history of paradigm shifts and values in academic psychology. New Ideas in Psychology, 15(2), 159–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0732-118X(97)00008-1

32.

Liu

J. H.

Macdonald

(2016). Towards a psychology of global consciousness through an ethical conception of self in society. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 46(3), 310–334. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12101

33.

Liu

J. H.

Woodward

(2013). Towards an indigenous psychology of religious terrorism with global implications: Introduction to AJSP’s special issue on Islamist terrorism in Indonesia. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(2), 79–82. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12025

34.

Liu

S. H.

(2000). The openness of Confucianism. Global Dialogue; Nicosia, 2(1), 89–98.

35.

Markus

H. R.

Kitayama

(1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224

36.

Martín-Baró

(1996). Writings for a liberation psychology ( Aron

Corne

, Eds.). Harvard University Press.

37.

Milla

Faturochman Ancok

(2013). The impact of leader–follower interactions on the radicalization of terrorists: A case study of the Bali bombers. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(2), 92–100. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12007

38.

Milla

M. N.

Hudiyana

Arifin

H. H.

(2020). Attitude toward rehabilitation as a key predictor for adopting alternative identities in deradicalization programs: An investigation of terrorist detainees’ profiles. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 23(1), 15–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12380

39.

Miracle

V. A.

(2016). The Belmont report: The triple crown of research ethics. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing, 35(4), 223–228. https://doi.org/10.1097/DCC.0000000000000186

40.

Moreland

R. L.

Levine

J. M.

(1982). Socialization in small groups: Temporal changes in individual-group relations. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 15, 137–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60297-X

41.

Muluk

Sumaktoyo

N. G.

Ruth

D. M.

(2013). Jihad as justification: National-survey evidence on belief in violent jihad as a mediating factor for sacred violence among Muslims in Indonesia. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(2), 101–111. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12002

42.

Muluk

Umam

A. N.

Milla

M. N.

(2020). Insights from a deradicalization program in Indonesian prisons: The potential benefits of psychological intervention prior to ideological discussion. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 23(1), 42–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12392

43.

Nisbett

R. E.

Peng

Choi

Norenzayan

(2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.108.2.291

44.

Ostrom

(1998). A behavioral approach to the rational choice theory of collective action: Presidential address, American political science association, 1997. The American Political Science Review, 92(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/2585925

45.

Perkins

D. D.

Hughey

Speer

P. W.

(2002). Community psychology perspectives on social capital theory and community development practice. Community Development, 33(1), 33–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330209490141

46.

Pitaloka

Abidin

Milla

M. N.

(2018). Psikologi Sosial: Pengantar dalam Teori dan Penelitian [Social psychology: An introduction to the theories and research]. Salemba.

47.

Putnam

R. D.

(2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster.

48.

Putra

I. E.

Sukabdi

Z. A.

(2013). Basic concepts and reasons behind the emergence of religious terror activities in Indonesia: An inside view. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(2), 83–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12001

49.

Richerson

Baldini

Bell

A. V.

Demps

Frost

Hillis

Mathew

Newton

E. K.

Naar

Newson

Ross

Smaldino

P. E.

Waring

T. M.

Zefferman

(2016). Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, Article e30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X1400106X

50.

Seedat

Duncan

Lazarus

(Eds.). (2001). Community psychology: Theory, method and practice. South African and other perspectives. Oxford University Press.

51.

Shrout

P. E.

Rodgers

J. L.

(2018). Psychology, science, and knowledge construction: Broadening perspectives from the replication crisis. Annual Review of Psychology, 69, 487–510. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011845

52.

Smith

L. T.

(1999). Decolonizing methodologies. Zed Books.

53.

Tebes

J. K.

Thai

N. D.

Matlin

S. L.

(2014). Twenty-first century science as a relational process: From Eureka! to team science and a place for community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 53(3–4), 475–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-014-9625-7

54.

Teo

(2010). What is epistemological violence in the empirical social sciences? Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(5), 295–303. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00265.x

55.

Tillich

(1951). Systematic theology. University of Chicago Press.

56.

Yamagishi

Jin

Kiyonari

(1999). Bounded generalized reciprocity. Advances in Group Process, 16, 61–197.

57.

Yamagishi

Matsuda

(2002, May). Improving the lemons market with a reputation system: An experimental study of internet auctioning [Working paper]. Department of Psychology, Hokkaido University. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Improving-the-Lemons-Market-with-a-Reputation-%3A-An-Yamagishi-Matsuda/62d444e3ab9435775650629afd04b5138f14b344

58.

Yang

K. S.

(2000). Monocultural and cross-cultural Indigenous approaches: The royal road to the development of a balanced global psychology. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 3(3), 241–264. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-839X.00067

59.

Yustisia

Shadiqi

M. A.

Milla

M. N.

Muluk

(2020). An investigation of an expanded encapsulate model of social identity in collective action (EMSICA) including perception of threat and intergroup contact to understand support for Islamist terrorism in Indonesia. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 23(1), 29–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12372