Self-reflexivity, Recessivity and the Evolution of Psychology

This paper supports the idea that the epistemology of Psychology had a relatively progressive line of development, and it was not only a constant swing between the primacy of two opposing perspectives: from out-side in and from in-side out. Although the recessive dynamics of these two metaphysical principles of Person Constructs Reality and Reality Constructs Person (Buss, 1978) was the critical marker of any significant paradigm change from the history of psychology, the development of psychological thinking has presupposed, in addition, a general evolutive path. I will demonstrate that these combined movements of alternation and progression form a unique complex sense of epistemological development of psychology accompanying the corresponding development of human personality level of self-reflection. Contrary to pessimistic views that interpret the reflexivity embedded in this dual paradigm shift to entrapping psychology to an eternal return, it actually propels the advancement of human self-reflective consciousness to a collective level of self-understanding. The final considerations are made about the current mainstream of psychological research and unreflexively practices detrimental to the substantiation of a Humanistic Psychological Science, which has become vital in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.