Dear Ken, Klaus, Jan, Keith, Tiiu, Chuck and everyone who has posted on false
consciousness,

When I raised the problem of false consciousness in doctoral research I was
thinking of it in a simple practical way and as a relatively straightforward
problem. I'm still hoping for simple answers and advice!

The original question comes from my english background. As I see it, in the
UK, 'false consciousness' is a widely used technical term drawn, as Klaus says
from Marxist analysis and conceptually extended and refined by Habermas and
others. In practical terms, it's been associated with the cumulative research
evidence on human cognitive error. Its spiritual home has been mainly with
those involved in left-leaning social change. The term is so carefully defined
and widely used in UK contexts I didn't feel the need to define it.

'False consciousness' as I have been using the term, refers to the mistakes
individuals make in interpreting what is happening to them. More recently, I've
begun to suspect it's perhaps easier and better to regard 'false consciousness'
in terms of humans lying - seen positively without moral judgment. The evidence
available indicates we lie to ourselves about situations we perceive; lie to
ourselves about what we 'see' and feel inside of ourselves; and lie to others
about both. The reason it might be helpful to view 'false consciousness in
terms of conscious and unconscious lying is there is a reasonable evidence
human abilities to lie and to detect others lying are related traits that
confer evolutionary benefits. Advances in either offer criteria for
evolutionary selection and are the basis of an evolutionary 'arms race' of
improved cognitive and perceptual performance. Klaus, I believe the ways we lie
to ourselves can be tested in many ways. An entertaining research method is to
review a record (film/audio tape) of oneself under the influence of
recreational drugs such as alcohol. There is usually a mismatch or sense of
reevaluation between the memories of events as seen at the time and later on
review.

Overall, it seems there are two perspectives that are possible in
exploring 'false consciousness':

1. We as humans faultily interpret our external perceptions and internal
states, and we do not accurately communicate information about theses
perceptions and states to others. That is, we lie to ourselves and others. This
implies our understanding of our 'sense of self' is also erroneous. That is we
are deluded if we believe that our subjective sense of self is 'true' or
reliable. There is a variety of empirical evidence from a range of disciplines
that indicate this is so.

2. To regard our individual self as 'true' and assume the empirical evidence to
the contrary is flawed.

From fairly extensive experience of the lack of reliability of my own sense of
self, ego, behaviour, perception and communication, I'm inclined to the first
position. As a matter of trust, I believe there may exist 'pure' honest,
reliable human beings to which the second perspective might apply.

An implication of the first position (humans consciously and unconsciously lie
to themselves and others about their interpretation of their internal events
and external perceptions) is that it challenges the validity of self-reports. I
feel this is particularly important in doctoral research where the intended
outcome is information that can be dependably and usefully used by other
researchers across a range of situations. This latter being central to the idea
of using taxpayers' money to fund research.

From the first perspective, issues relating to 'false consciousness' suggest
that self-reflection and self-report can never be appropriate as the primary or
sole data gathering method for a doctoral research project. I believe this is
widely accepted in most research disciplines.

What I'm interested in is the detail of how self-reflection and self-reporting
can be used in secondary roles in doctoral research. An example of an issue
that is significant in doctoral research about design and still needs
resolution is whether it is possible to validate self-reflection data by
checking for consistency across the self-reports of several individuals (this
has been used in protocol analyses of designers' behaviour). Evidence from
research in areas of cultural studies, mass communication, sociology, social
sciences, philosophy of science, and social psychology suggest that it is
common for members of groups to have similar styles of 'false consciousness'.
As a result, members of a group may respond similarly regardless of actual
differences in perception and internal states. This indicates that validation
by checking for consistency across the self-reports of several individuals may
be problematic. It's one of a number of issues that need careful attention.

In my original question to the list, I was asking simply for advice on how
others are addressing these sorts of research issues. I'm particularly
interested in how other supervisors are guiding PhD candidates in their theory
and data validation where it involves self-report and/or self-reflection.

Best wishes from Oslo, home of the annual dim sims,

Terry

===
Dr. Terence Love
Dept of Design
Curtin University
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