Is self-relevant research a bad thing?
Approach gets mixed reviews
Kathleen R. Bogart, Ph.D., has written about improving inclusion for disabled people based on self-relevant research. She was born with Moebius syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects the muscles that control facial expression and eye movement resulting in facial weakness or paralysis. As someone with lived experience, she wanted to dive deeper into disability research but found the topic woefully underrepresented.
“In psychology, there is a stigma against conducting me-search, or self-relevant research, about one’s own identity or experiences,” she explained. “This bias overshadows the fact that self-relevant research is common and can be a strength, especially by increasing the inclusion of underrepresented minorities like people with disabilities.”
Results from a 2021 study by researchers from Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität in Munich, suggested participants’ preconceived notions determined feelings of trustworthiness and credibility.
“When participants hold favorable attitudes towards the research topic (i.e., LGBTQ or veganism), ‘me-searchers’ were perceived as more trustworthy, and their research was perceived as more credible. This pattern was reversed when participants held unfavorable attitudes towards the research topic,” researchers wrote.
Teresa Amabile, Ph.D., received her doctorate in psychology from Stanford University before moving on to Harvard Business School as a Baker Foundation Professor.
She co-wrote an article about retirement while retiring and her summation, in part, said the pursuit of objectivity has led the field to vastly undervalue self-relevant research.
Her main argument is that this method can enhance the “richness, validity, and methodological diversity” of research and can also help to understand “unusual experiences, high degrees of emotionality, or identity issues.”
She relayed her thoughts further in an email exchange.
“I think that a careful scholar doing self-relevant research can establish guardrails to ensure that their work is as objective as non-self-relevant research,” she said. “Self-relevant research can ask more important and appropriate research questions and yield deeper insights than research on topics that have no personal relevance to the researcher.”
Andrew Devendorf, MA, is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology from the University of South Florida. He published “Rethinking Psychology’s Attitudes About Me-Search” in 2020.
Andrew Devendorf, MA, is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology from the University of South Florida who has written prolifically about the topic. He published “Rethinking Psychology’s Attitudes About Me-Search” in 2020.
In 2022, he published “Is ‘Me-search’ a Kiss of Death in Mental Health Research?” In his most recent article published in 2023, “Stigmatizing Our Own: Self-Relevant Research (Me-Search) Is Common but Frowned Upon in Clinical Psychological Science,” Devendorf pointed out some important findings would be lost without self-relevant research.
He cited some examples.
Without self-relevant research, there would be no substantial data from Marsha Linehan, the founder of dialectical behavior therapy, the “gold-standard treatment” for borderline personality disorder. (She later disclosed she had BPD).
Thomas Joiner, a leader in suicide research, lost his father to suicide.
And Stephen Hinshaw, a leader in the fight against mental health stigma, chronicled his father’s recurring mental illness and the stigma surrounding it.
Bogart’s point of view is that self-relevant research is widespread in the field of psychology, yet its prevalence is largely neglected. She noted when researchers study a majority group, their research is perceived as universal and objective. But if those same researchers study a minority group that share their lived experiences, it is considered subjective and biased.
Devendorf emphasized that self-relevant research is not inherently better. “There’s value in the diversity of people’s perspectives,” he said. “It tends to be stigmatized if they have a personal connection to it because people think they are pushing an agenda. But there’s value in lived experience.”
Part of the stigma may come from past research that went awry. Devendorf cited the Harvard Psilocybin Project in the 1960s that studied the effect of psychotropic drugs on the human mind.
The two academics, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, were eventually discredited because of their “lack of scientific rigor and failure to observe established research guidelines,” according to the department of psychology at Harvard University.
As a result, the subject matter was effectively taboo and has only recently been revisited in studies.
For quite some time, it was difficult for women to participate in the field of psychology, often being considered less intelligent and emotionally fragile. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many women were denied enrollment in programs, had their degrees delayed or denied, and were refused academic or research positions.
Devendorf said if the field never fully integrated women and if only men conducted the research, we would never be able to truly understand that gender.
He said if we neglect those voices, we are missing out on valuable perspective.
He gave another example of people who develop their own theories and then seek to test them, asking, “Some would say they are just trying to provide support for their own theory. How is it different than self-relevant research?”
Self-relevant research comes with variety and is a prevalent method. However, it is still frowned upon. Devendorf noted, “There is a stigma toward talking openly about our own mental health issues and that contributes to the silence on the problem. But silence leads to more silence. Lived experience is common and so is doing research on it.”