关键词: 质性心理学, 质性研究, 质性方法

Abstract: The article reviewed the historical background, current situation, potentials, and challenges of qualitative research in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology exists a long past, but only a short history. The qualitative approach has been a tradition since the beginning of psychology. Many prominent psychologists such as Freud, Wundt, James, Piaget, and Bruner employed qualitative methods to establish their well-known theories. But this history was neglected by mainstream psychology for a long period of time. Most of the psychological textbooks emphasize quantitative approaches and results but do not mention the fact that many theories are qualitatively generated from qualitative data. Qualitative reports had been mostly rejected by mainstream journals. However, the recent development of institutions, publishing outlets, and research publications that aim at facilitating qualitative research implies the returning of qualitative traditions. Psychological institutions for qualitative research has been established in Germany, England, the USA, and China in recent decades. Several academic journals for qualitative reports also emerged in recent years. Qualitative research has gained momentum in most areas of Western psychology, such as narrative psychology, developmental psychology, counseling psychology, positive psychology, and sports psychology. The development of qualitative research in China is represented by the establishment of related institutions and is featured by the progress of research in life narrative and psychobiography. Scholars from both sides of the Taiwan Straits set up the Society for Life Narrative and Psychobiography and hold academic meetings regularly. Also, the first academic journal for psychobiography around the world has been found in 2014. Qualitative methods are also used by Chinese psychologists in studying the psychology of personality, social phenomenon, counseling, and sports. The nature of qualitative methods allows researchers to investigate these areas in the context of Chinese culture and to identify special concepts and distinctive features. Still, some problems remain. Qualitative research has been misunderstood to be a lack of standardized criterion in evaluating its quality. Nevertheless, the efforts to provide a set of principles for evaluating qualitative studies have been undergoing and a unified framework for designing and reviewing qualitative psychology research was proposed in recent years by APA. Another potential risk is proceduralism, in which qualitative research practice such as interviewing has been guided to follow a “standardized” procedure, in order to increase researchers’ productivity. Such a practice engenders the flexibility of qualitative methods. Despite such problems that are needed to be solved, the qualitative approach in psychology showed its potentials in studying the complex psychological phenomenon and in generating new concepts or theories. Qualitative methods have helped Chinese psychologists in identifying particular personality dimensions of Chinese people, forming the special theoretical framework in the field of social psychology for issues including attachment and trust, providing new insight into the practice of clinical therapy. The qualitative traditions in psychology seem to have been recognized by a lot of psychologists and are contributing to many areas of psychology. In general, rejuvenating qualitative psychology represents a period of turning to pluralism in the field of psychology.

Key words: qualitative psychology, qualitative research, qualitative methods