Looking from within: Comparing first-person approaches to studying experience
Current Psychology September 30, 2021 DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-02277-3 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Perspective graphical Psychological research First person Value mathematics Complement music Cognitive psychology Artificial intelligence |
| Citations | 41 |
| Key findings | First-person methods can complement and enrich existing third-person psychological research by accessing subtle facets of subjective experience that are otherwise inaccessible. |
Abstract
Abstract Fostering our understanding of how humans behave, feel and think is a fundamental goal of psychological research. Widely used methods in psychological research are self-report and behavioral measures which require an experimenter to collect data from another person. By comparison, first-person measures that assess more subtle facets of subjective experiences, are less widely used. Without integrating such more subtle first-person measures, however, fundamental aspects of psychological phenomena remain inaccessible to psychological theorizing. To explore the value and potential contribution of first-person methods, the current article aims to provide an overview over already established first-person methods and compare them on relevant dimensions. Based on these results, researchers can select suitable first-person methods to study different facets of subjective experiences. Overall, the investigation of psychological phenomena from a first-person perspective can complement and enrich existing research from a third-person perspective.