Pluralism or Polarization? An Empirical Analysis of Epistemological Positions in Psychology

Contemporary debates in psychology are often framed in terms of methodological oppositions, particularly between quantitative and qualitative approaches. However, these debates also reflect deeper ontological and epistemological divergences that remain insufficiently examined empirically. The present study aimed to investigate the ontological, epistemological, and methodological positions of psychology researchers in France, and their relationships with disciplinary affiliations and research practices.
A mixed-methods design was employed with a sample of 289 researchers from a wide range of subfields. Quantitative analyses (contingency tables and network analysis) were combined with qualitative analyses of open-ended responses. The results revealed structured epistemological configurations organized around two main poles—experimental–quantitative and interpretative–qualitative—alongside a more peripheral contextual orientation. These configurations were associated with disciplinary anchoring and differentiated conceptions of scientific neutrality, objectivity, and the role of subjectivity in knowledge production.
Overall, the findings suggest that the field is better characterized by a process of differentiation into relatively coherent epistemic orientations than by disorganized fragmentation. Building on these results, we propose an integrative multi-level model of knowledge production, highlighting the dynamic interplay between determinants, epistemic orientations, normative principles, and research practices, as well as feedback processes shaping epistemic engagement with reality.