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This distinction between behavior and experience is crucial in understanding the outside-in inside-out dichotomy. The system studied by psychology - the person - is unique among all the systems in the universe in that it can be observed from the inside as well as from the outside. That is, were I able to observe you just now as you are reading this. I could observe you from the outside - that is, your behavior. However, you from your exclusive ringside seat, can observe yourself from the inside - that is, your experience. In a textbook on educational psychology which I published recently, I tried to turn human development inside out - that is, to shift from the current behavioristic emphasis on behavior to a humanistic emphasis on experience. My argument in that book is summarized in the next two sections, in which the outside-in view of behaviorism (section 2) is contrasted with the inside-out view of humanism (section 3). Having succumbed to the temptation to summarize my book in one sentence (I find that this is the best way to deal with temptation), I am tempted to summarize social reform by humanists in a similar succinct sentence, suitable for transcription to a bumper sticker. Once again, I gleefully succumb. HUMANISTS TRY TO TURN SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT INSIDE-OUT The two projects seem parallel - the former shifting from the bottom left to the bottom right cell in Fig. 4.1 and the latter shifting from the top right to the top left cell in Fig. 4.1. However, it is difficult for people working at a macro level of analysis to shift directly from an outside-in to an inside-out point of view, since, as argued above, the traditional macro level of analysis requires an outside-in point of view. |
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