An Experiential Approach With Quantitative Methods: a Research Paradigm

Abstract

A research paradigm for the study of human experience is presented which is comprised of two stages. The first, an experiential approach, begins with a mode of phenomenological analysis in which investigators question and passively attend to their experiences of a particular phenomenon of experi- ence such as anger or anxiety. They describe these experiences in the context of placing themselves in situations or reliving past situations. The experiences are then described in terms of how they experience the phenomenon rather than in terms of the target of their attention or the stimulus conditions. From analysis of these descriptions, it is possible to formulate definitional hypotheses, that is, statements about the necessary and sufficient experiential elements for the occurrence of a given phenomenon. It also is possible to formulate functional hypotheses, statements about the relationships between these experiential elements. Both definitional and functional hypotheses can then be tested in experiments using subjects that are unfamiliar with these hypotheses. Such experiments constitute the quantitative methods stage of this research paradigm. Definitional hypotheses can be tested with questionnaires and functional hypotheses can be tested using ratio scaling techniques similar to those employed by psychophysicists. Since the variables of functional hypotheses remain within the domain of the experiencing person, it may be possible to discover laws of experience. Finally, confirmation of experiential hypotheses through direct experiential involvement in the approach phase and testing their reliability and generalizability in the methods phase represent two stages of verification that are epistemologically complementary.