Psychological science in a postmodern context

Postmodern scholarship poses significant challenges to pivotal assumptions of individual knowledge, objectivity, and truth. In their place, an emphasi s is placed on the communal construction of knowledge, objectivity as a rel ational achievement, and language as a pragmatic medium through which local truths are constituted. Although these developments in understanding may s eem opposed to psychological science, they are not. Rather, they invite a n ew range of questions about the Potentials of traditional research. These q uestions are vitally concerned with the significance of such inquiry in cul tural life. More importantly, this emerging view of psychological science o pens new and exciting vistas of theoretical, methodological, and practical significance. Increasing manifestations of movement in these directions sug gest the possibility of profound change in the profession.