Modeling and Theorizing in Psychology: Autoepistemology and Epistemic EDI (Equity,Diversity,and Inclusion) as Tools for Challenging Racism

Abstract

After challenging models of human nature and psychological science, a series of interrogations are proposed that aid in improving the practice of theorizing in psychology, specifically in regard to the topic of race. The program of autoepistemology is defined as the study of how “my” knowledge is connected with histories, cultures and societies as well as with the academic communities in which “I” participate, and with “my” personal cognitive, affective and motivational preferences and experiences. Autoepistemology includes reflections about the relationship between psychological knowledge on race, on the one hand, and intellectual and cultural traditions, horizons, and practices, on the other hand. It is argued that theorizing on race is strengthened when addressing equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) as epistemic categories in all contexts of the research process. Epistemic EDI, which includes an interrogation of power, together with institutional and educational EDI, has the potential to dismantle racism in psychology. An approach to theorizing about human groups that avoids the pitfalls of White epistemologies is proposed.

Modeling and Theorizing in Psychology

There is considerable disagreement in the philosophy of science on the “nature” of models or theories. For the topic of this special issue, we suggest focusing on theorizing (instead of theories) and on modeling in terms of onto-epistemic assumptions about the nature of humans and their mental life that have guided empirical research as well as academic interpretations. Reese and Overton (1970) described the basic level of models as metaphysical, which differs from theoretical or interpretative levels (theory-specific models). A model is “a lens through which the subject matter is viewed” (Overton & Reese, 1973, p. 67) that establishes theoretical categories and features, problems to be investigated, as well as explanations and understandings of data. The authors identified mechanistic and organismic models as central in the history of (developmental) psychology.

Models of what it means to be human have influenced how psychologists conceptualize humans and the research process. In the Western canon, a variety of models of what it means to be human have been proposed, including models conceived by classical Greek philosophers emphasizing reason, Christian theorists emphasizing will, conservative-individualistic thinkers highlighting the role of negative emotions, and 19^th century programs identifying biology or society as crucial. In the 20^th century one notices an explosion of psychological models from Freud to positive psychology (see also Loptson, 1998; Teo, 2018). While Western thought on the matter was arguably based on a self-model that was universalized abstractly, models and theories of diverging human natures were developed at the same time. Such theories began with Plato’s (1993) ideas about a stratified society based on different psychological proclivities, featured traditional assumptions about the inferiority of women (for more current debates, see Fine, 2010), and included European coloniality that set the stage for dividing humans into different “races” (Winston, 2004).

Race taxonomies were developed for descriptive and normative reasons that justified European colonialism, slavery, imperialism, and genocide (e.g., Elkins, 2022; Lindqvist, 1996; Malik, 1996). Early race theories assigned moral components (good/bad) to human race divisions that cemented hierarchies (see Blumenbach, 1795). The unity of humanity was overcome with a model that established different kinds of humans, with a particular constituted race (Nordic, Caucasian, European) being set as the standard of humanity against which other groups could be reconstructed (for the Caucasian theory, see Baum, 2006). Accordingly, those who were considered to deviate from an imagined or empirical norm could be otherized or be made into a subhuman, a stream of thought and practice that still has relevance in current debates, for instance, concerning migration (Teo, 2020). Race became an important concept to justify exclusion and harsher practices.

Apollo Belvedere (in the Vatican Museums) from the 2^nd century and Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452–1519) Vitruvian Man have been considered perfect models of human beings in Western thought (see also Bindman, 2002). The overrepresentation of the Western conception of the human (Wynter, 2003)—as a white, able-bodied, adult man—is still felt in psychology with significant implications in terms of the theories, research, and practices employed. It is not surprising that the feminist philosopher Braidotti (2013) highlights that the very attempt to define what it means to be human has been exclusionary, necessitating a theoretical move towards posthuman modeling (well-articulated in disability studies: Goodley et al., 2014). The exclusion of groups from the realm of normative humanity has included the marginalization of racialized Others, persons with disabilities, women, lower-income groups, and LGBTQ + communities. The ability to make an Otherization relevant in a specific location and time requires the imposition of power, and psychology has participated in the exertion of power by providing empirical justifications for the inferiority of certain groups.

Not only is the discipline of psychology based on a normative Western model of humanity, but also on a Western model of science (recognizing that competing Western conceptions of psychological science have existed; see Danziger, 1990). For a variety of historical and political reasons, psychology adopted a natural-scientific model of science that led to a narrow, subdividing research horizon, and the exclusion of contextuality and temporality, which neglected and omitted marginalized and otherized voices. The methodologism (primacy of method) of psychology has supported the status quo because, for instance, a focus on empirical differences reifies historically constituted differences. Adding the ideology of White supremacy allowed for the ranking of people into higher and lower, or superior and inferior groups (Teo, 2022a). The methodologism of psychology (based on an Anglo-American model of research) satisfied the scientific standing of psychology and reproduced existing social hierarchies (namely, a Euro-American model of humanity). As such, theorizing human mental life did not attend to equity, diversity, and inclusion in knowledge (epistemic EDI).

In order to dismantle Western models of humanity and science, we suggest a psychology of science approach (see also O’Doherty et al., 2019), which focuses on an interrogation of not only the discipline’s knowledge and theorizing but also that of one’s own. This approach is about interrogating and studying the implicit (metaphysical) ideas “we” ¹ hold in regard to what it means to be human and the explicit (articulated) theories that have been advanced based on empirical research. This process includes asking “ourselves” what model and theory of human diversity “we” operate with and what “we” consider the norm. Do “I” implicitly envision a male, white, able-bodied, adult person when grounding and advancing “my” research practices? Does “my” modeling of the human account for a Black transwoman in a wheelchair? Psychologists need to ask such questions, not solipsistically, but in dialogue with marginalized or otherized groups, including racialized communities. The same applies to one’s psychological knowledge more generally because Western history and culture have shaped and influenced this culturally and socially embedded discipline.

We suggest that dismantling racism and ethnocentrism as an epistemic project requires a set of entangled strategies: an analysis of the implicit and explicit human and scientific models that the discipline and “I” hold or assume; an analysis of the discipline’s knowledge and “my” knowledge about human diversity and its consequences for psychological theorizing; a move beyond the status quo, in order to dismantle racism and ethnocentrism, based on the idea that psychological theorizing requires an epistemic and critical approach to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI); and theorizing that understands EDI as an epistemic imperative that strengthens knowledge. Because the focus in this paper is on dismantling racism, the critique and reconstruction of existing psychological models and knowledge is less important than epistemic reflexivity, which is referred to in this paper as autoepistemology that guides modeling and theorizing.

Theorizing “my” Psychological Knowledge

The term autoepistemology has been used in analytic philosophy (Hild, 1998), and is characterized as “opinions about one’s own opinion” (p. 321). In the proposed approach, the concept refers to the amalgamation of subjectivity (understood as first-person somato-psychological life) with epistemology, based on critical traditions and feminist autotheory (combining autobiography and theorizing; Fournier, 2021). When connecting epistemology with subjectivity, the latter is not confined to the internal but includes the social, cultural, and historical, the relational and interactive, as well as personal idiosyncrasies (not to forget the body) (Teo, 2023). Autoepistemology is the study of how “my” knowledge is connected with histories, cultures and societies as well as with the academic and other communities in which “I” participate and with “my” personal cognitive, affective and motivational preferences and experiences.

The idea of autoepistemology has been discussed, without using this term, in works on autoethnography, reflexivity, and feminist theories as well as in decolonial and Indigenous approaches. For instance, Adams et al. (2015b) suggested using personal experiences while working on culture, and employing careful self-reflection in the methodology of autoethnography. Feminist scholars have advocated for epistemologies rooted in cultural biographies, social locations and gendered standpoints (e.g., Collins, 1991; see also Weis & Fine’s, 2012, notion of “critical bifocality”). Decolonial psychologists are aware that the socio-cultural histories of researchers shape their research claims (e.g., see Adams et al., 2015a; Bhatia, 2018; Segalo & Kiguwa, 2018; Malherbe & Ratele, 2022). Smith (1999) decolonizes methods and addresses Indigenous epistemologies rooted in claims about water, land, and sovereignty and in issues of positionality, geography, and recovery of marginalized knowledge. However, autoepistemology, as presented, is developed as a systematic tool that primarily challenges and supports researchers from the dominant culture—researchers from the Global North—to understand the limits of their own knowledge, while a methodical practice of epistemology from a first-person perspective is proposed.

“My” knowledge is embedded in what is considered true and relevant at a point in time and in a lived location. This means that “I” cannot catapult myself outside of space and time but need to understand how “my” knowledge, for instance on race, is engendered by historical and current discussions. “I” must assess the degree to which “my” knowledge about race is based on what is produced in academic articles and by “my” first-person and community experiences. “I” must realize that “my” knowledge (about race) is not just based on what has been published in psychological science but is also based in this culture, and that the products of the (psychological) humanities (e.g., the history of racism) may increase “my” knowledge and understanding of human groups (see also Nelson et al., 2013). Applying epistemic EDI, “I” can ask whether the discipline or “I” have done justice (or injustice) to the mental life of ethnic groups, racialized communities, or various cultures, and whether my knowledge encompasses socio-historically constituted diversity, or is inclusive of the varieties of cultures and ethnicities, and whether “I” give epistemic primacy to “my” own cultural group that “I” set (explicitly or implicitly) as a standard. Has the discipline of psychology or “I” given the same amount of attention to research on the challenges that racialized, ethnic, or cultural minorities face within “my” own cultural context?

As a psychologist “I” need to ask “myself” whether “I” ride along a methodological theory of truth, meaning that “I” believe that solely following the “highest standards” of research methodology will produce Truth automatically. Have “I” abandoned questions about epistemic justice to the object, which might be contextual and historical? Indeed, human mental life and the mental life of racialized groups have histories, as do variables, instruments, tests, measures, interpretations, and applications. For instance, scientific racism works with traditional measures and statistical tests, but the socio-historical nature of concepts (including race), materials, samples, and discussions, remain unquestioned (Gould, 1996; Jackson & Weidman, 2004; Tucker, 1994). Based on a methodological theory of truth, scientific racism has established empirical differences; however, from a broader concept of truth and objectivity (Teo, 2015), such knowledge (which is given away to the public) is problematic because it has ignored the societal, historical, and cultural complexities of race, and because epistemic EDI has not been accounted for (e.g., including racialized minorities as researchers on race differences).

More generally, as a psychologist “I” need to ask “myself” about the sources or origins of “my” knowledge. How much of “my” knowledge comes from authority (parents, teachers, professors, peers, textbooks, research articles) and what is the role of authority in “my” understanding? How do these various authorities contrast with or compare to “my” personal or scientific experiences and observations? What role do reason, reflection, and theorizing have in shaping “my” knowledge about race? Do intuition, revelation, or speculation play a role when it comes to “our” knowledge about race? Does what “I” know about the human and cultural diversity of mental life involve epistemic EDI? Or is my knowledge confined to the research program that I have accepted (see also Teo, 2018)?

Autoepistemic reflexivity must include the roots of “my” knowledge, but equally important, it must address what is ignored. The argument that reflexivity is not a solipsistic project is evident here because “we” usually do not know what we do not know. Rather, reflexivity requires engagement with scholars and people from different contexts and with different experiences. Can “I” be value-neutral when it comes to the topic of race, which is academically and politically charged? Do “I” realize that, within a discipline that obfuscates the role of values in research, objectivity is not just an epistemic but also an ethical category (Daston & Galison, 2007)? Equally, we argue that EDI is not only an organizational-institutional, educational, but also an ethico-epistemic project. Seeking more knowledge about diverse communities, including diverse communities in practices of knowledge, and ensuring/demanding that marginalized communities have an equal chance of being included at all stages of research, all serve to benefit epistemic claims made about humans and their mental life.

As a psychologist “I” must ask myself whether the role of subjectivity is ignored or obscured in research. Knowledge not only benefits from the history and sociology of science, but also from a psychology of science that understands the role of subjectivity (socio-subjectivity, inter-subjectivity, intra-subjectivity) in what is researched (Teo, 2023). This understanding of subjectivity does not apply only to internal dynamics but to the cultural entanglement of human subjectivity, including the subjectivity of the researcher. How is the researcher’s (“my”) knowledge situated, and do social characteristics such as (“my”) class, gender, race, and (dis)ability status play a role in the representation of psychological kinds and influence how research is conducted? In research on racialized people, do “I” have an epistemic advantage or disadvantage as a racialized person? In a thought experiment, “we” can consider whether the same research would have been conducted in the discipline of psychology, if all the psychologists in its history had been women, or if Nazi Germany had won WWII and inaugurated a new world order. We should equally assess the role of colonialism in psychological knowledge.

From the perspective of the psychological humanities, “I” need to discuss the limits of “my” knowledge. Indeed, my tradition(s) (see Gadamer, 1960/1997) play a role in what knowledge “I” acquire, how “I” acquire it and what “I” do with it. This applies to “my” cultural and academic traditions and frameworks, as well as personal traditions. In each tradition, we operate with certain Gadamerian prejudices (a descriptive term) that enable us to do research, but at the same time confine “us” in what “we” are interested in. As a researcher “I” have a certain horizon, which can be narrow or broad. Arguably, a broad horizon sets the conditions for the possibility of better knowledge but does not guarantee it. The more “I” know about other cultures and other times, the more “I” account for diversity and include other voices in research as subjects or “objects,” and the more everyone has an equal chance to be heard and contribute, the more likely “I” will be to broaden “my” horizon on race. We understand that it is difficult to learn about one’s own ethnocentrism and time-centrism, which will always set boundaries to one’s knowledge. But it is possible to expand one’s boundaries by learning from the Other (diversity) and from the past, even if one is unable to envision how psychologists will think about psychology in 500 years.

Given the increasing complexity of knowledge in psychology and its subdisciplines, and given the difficulty for any individual psychologist to keep up with increasing knowledge, one can make the argument that epistemic modesty would be a logical virtue that follows from the accumulation of knowledge. However, instead we can observe the opposite—an epistemic grandiosity on the background of the neoliberalization of academia, in which bragging about one’s accomplishments, the exaggeration of one’ achievements, and attention in the scientific community and the public are valued in the entrepreneurial academic (Teo, 2019). It is clear that scientificracists have received a great deal of public attention because the historically charged topic of race has political valence. It is also not surprising that epistemic grandiosity has been combined with victimhood (Jackson & Winston, 2021). “I” should ask “myself” whether “I,” as a Western researcher, have shown epistemic modesty when it comes to race, especially when EDI has not been considered as an epistemic value or criterion when conducting research on the Other.

Epistemic EDI

Analyzing models and knowledge (about human races) in terms of diversity, practices of inclusion/exclusion, and research opportunities, is an important step in dismantling racism in psychology. Reflexivity on “my” models and knowledge should not be practiced on the couch or armchair but in collaboration with marginalized (e.g., racialized) groups. Reflexivity is not about “me” but rather involves a shared process with other people and for people—if one is in a position of power. Autoepistemology, despite its literal translation, contains a process that requires EDI. A critique and reconstruction of implicit and explicit models and theories in the past and present of psychology should move to a theorizing that actively includes epistemic EDI. Practices of epistemic EDI can be basic and/or critical. Dismantling racism in psychology is deconstructive, reconstructive, but also constructive, and it requires a process in which epistemic EDI is actively involved, and a researching and theorizing that is diverse, inclusive, and just. More generally, a research model based on epistemic EDI contradicts a model based on exclusion.

Diversity is used here to focus on humans without invoking superiority/inferiority and to account for the variety of human populations and cultures in practices of knowledge. Including epistemic EDI should change not only the model about humans but also the research questions asked, the methods applied, the interpretations of data, as well as knowledge dissemination. Indeed, in the past several decades there has been increased awareness, in psychology, of the American or white character of psychological knowledge (Arnett, 2008; Henrich et al., 2010) as well as the racism that has existed within psychological science (Roberts et al., 2020; Roberts & Rizzo, 2021; Teo, 2022b). This characterization of psychology applies not only to the social and cultural areas of psychology but also to research on basic processes such as perception (Henrich et al., 2010). Addressing diversity means that selective populations are insufficient to make conclusions about the whole of humanity.

A model based on diversity (see also Özbilgin, 2024) supersedes a model based on difference. In psychology, arguably, “we” have been trained to focus on empirical difference and to understand the “Other” not only as different but also as deficient. For instance, critical disability studies have demonstrated that psychological research has centered on the able-bodied person while empirical research on difference in this area has focused on weaknesses and not on strengths (Goodley, 2017). For that reason, critical disability studies reflect a skepticism of psychology, with the latter’s focus on norms and deviations from the “normal.” In terms of empirical racialization, difference has been introduced to establish and justify racial rankings. A focus on empirical difference assessed on a scale, measure, instrument or other apparatus establishes hierarchies, whereas theorizing with diversity in mind aims at embracing the plurality of being. Diversity accounts for human variation without implying and referring to a hierarchy. Admittedly, it may be difficult for some people to imagine diversity without hierarchy because such thinking requires moving from a one-dimensional difference model of human beings to a multidimensional model of diversity. With diversity, the white able-bodied person is no longer the norm or standard against which all others are measured in terms of their deviations or inferiority.

Diversity has implications for equality and equity. Whereas equality intends to give everybody the same opportunities or treatment under the assumption of equal conditions (i.e., the assumption that everyone has the same needs or is “starting from the same place”), equity involves giving people different supports based on different needs and recognizes that it is not an equal playing field—that not everyone is starting from the same position. For instance, following an equality approach, paper-and-pencil intelligence tests are assumed to be “fair” if every test-taker is given the same instructions, questions, and amount of time to complete the test. Accordingly, all test-takers are assumed to have the same opportunity to score high or low, based on their abilities. In contrast, intelligence assessments based on Vygotsky’s (1978) ideas, which may be considered to be in closer alignment with an equity approach, involve observations of children as being active in concrete contexts (e.g., at home). Accordingly, an intellectual performance is only comprehensible by taking activities and particular contexts into account. Any activity must be contextualized, including the activities of scientists, a point which has implications for policies (e.g., affirmative action or employment equity policies).

If people are diverse, then it follows, under a diversity model, that human beings that have been excluded from research should be included, and their needs and experiences recognized. In the difference model, in which one group is assumed to be the norm, it is unnecessary to change the norms based on the performances of diverse groups; accordingly, the needs and experiences of such groups can be ignored (see Neville et al., 2016, for the critique of color-blind ideology; see also Roberts & Mortenson, 2023). In the diversity model it is necessary to include diverse groups (as researchers or participants) because they add to our understanding of the complexity of human mental life. It is fair to say that most of psychology has been based on a Euro-American model of human mental life at the core. Despite the general acknowledgment that the sampling of undergraduate students in psychological research has produced biased knowledge in psychology, and that diverse cultures need to be included in psychological research, research practices have been slow to change and, in our assessment, have not done so to any epistemic satisfaction. Qualitative methods that account for the lived experiences of human beings may hold more promise in this regard, but they are not necessarily better than quantitative methods if they do not reflect a commitment to diversity and inclusion in their research practices.

Theorizing psychological events and objects as well as theorizing their relation to race requires epistemic EDI. From a critical perspective, epistemic EDI involves questioning the sources of the lack of EDI and ensuring that EDI does not become merely performative. Performativity is the practice of doing EDI for compliance reasons or to make an institution or person “look good” (“lip service”), rather than doing EDI for the reason of creating substantive change or to address power relations (Henry et al., 2017; Tait-Signal & Febbraro, 2024). EDI is conventional when the argument is made that psychologists simply “need more EDI in their research,” or when tokenism, a type of performativity, is pursued in psychological research (e.g., the recruitment of research participants from under-represented groups to create the appearance of diversity, without addressing underlying power inequities). In contrast, EDI becomes critical (postconventional) when an analysis or interrogation of power is added to the discussion. Likewise, critical EDI involves asking questions about the conditions (e.g., in the history of psychology) that have made EDI an epistemic necessity.

Whereas EDI might involve adding racialized minority persons to research samples, as well as to the institutions and practices of scientific psychology (e.g., hiring racialized psychologists), critical EDI questions scientific psychology and the scientific methods that have supported racism. In practice this could mean not only encouraging more diversity in clinical psychology (e.g., training more racialized minority persons in cognitive behavior therapy), but also changing the practices of clinical psychology to make it more community-involved. Further, critical EDI in psychology involves truly valuing the contributions, expertise, or knowledge of racialized psychologists, and appropriately funding their work, rather than simply making public statements to prioritize EDI without providing appropriate support, or shifting priorities away from EDI when other institutional priorities surface (Henry et al., 2017).

Critically thinking psychologists must ask how power is distributed in society and science as well as who has the power to promote epistemic EDI in processes of research and application. Who has the financial, institutional and cultural capital to make decisions about institutional and epistemic EDI? Critical EDI would entail arguing that the good intentions of powerful allies are insufficient if systems of power (including systems of racism) remain in place. Critical EDI is about advancing social justice, including socio-economic justice, in the discipline of psychology (and racial capitalism; see Virdee, 2019). Critical EDI interrogates systems of privilege, neglect and supremacy, the connection of psychological science and politics, the impact of white epistemologies on psychological research, and the cultural receptiveness in the public for scientific-racist ideas. As such, critical EDI addresses how a narrow horizon that emerges from traditional methods, how the status quo supporting function of testing for difference, and how the obfuscation of contextuality and temporality of psychological phenomena must be overcome through education, but also by changing power structures.

From this critical EDI perspective, it would be insufficient, for instance, to include more racialized researchers in research on intelligence without questioning intelligence testing as it emerged as a colonial and supremacist project. Theorizing within critical EDI reconstructs the conditions that have led to a lack of EDI in research and what this means for psychological knowledge. Based on the facticity of power, racialized researchers cannot rely on institutional EDI, but must claim it (an act which might involve challenging power). A backlash to critical EDI may also be expected, given that entrenched interests (including financial ones) and careers have been built on the power of colonialism and racial capitalism. It is more convenient for power to accommodate elements of EDI, for instance, in sampling practices, than it is for those with entrenched interests to give up epistemic power that has enabled and maintained racialized power differentials in the first place. Real transformation requires not only intellectual democratization, but also economic democratization.

For those reasons, we suggest that projects based on institutional or basic EDI should be labeled ameliorative, whereas projects that challenge existing power differentials in neoliberal academia and in scientific psychology should be considered transformative EDI programs. Whereas conventional or ameliorative epistemic EDI may improve knowledge practices, critical or transformative epistemic EDI targets the whole system of knowledge, including the epistemic and human models of researchers. For instance, research involving the assessment of cognitive difference between two ethnic groups can be improved by including racialized researchers (ameliorative EDI), but may not address circumstances or the question of why psychologists are focused on examining differences between two racialized groups that have been essentialized or naturalized (Memmi, 1982/2000).

Certainly, basic EDI and critical EDI are intertwined when theorizing with both in mind. Because equity, diversity, and inclusion are understood here from an epistemic perspective, in relation to psychological knowledge, theorizing will certainly be improved by addressing EDI. However, critical EDI, with its focus on challenging power and existing power hierarchies, remains an epistemic necessity. Theorizing psychological processes and events, and dismantling racism as an epistemic project, requires a constructive approach. Theorizing as a constructive practice, more so than theories, or the result of theorizing, is a shared practice that should be performed in collaboration with researchers based on epistemic EDI—a practice that moves beyond the notion that there exists one ideal model of the human or one methodology for studying humans. A systematic analysis is needed to improve theorizing with EDI and is integral to critical EDI. This involves analyzing the research process, including theorizing, along four dimensions: The contexts of discovery, justification, interpretation, and translation.

Practicing Epistemic EDI

(a) In the context of discovery, a traditional philosophy of science term (see Teo, 2022b), psychologists and other social scientists ask why someone is interested in studying what they are studying (e.g., why is this question asked and what is not asked?). How do money, power, and interests (social or personal) constitute or influence what is researched? More generally, the context of discovery considers the role of history, culture, society, and academic and other relationships, in advancing research topics (Ward, 2002). From a critical perspective, the politics of science and the politics of psychology need to be interrogated, including the question of what kind of interests are served, and what interests are excluded from research programs, by posing specific questions (see also feminist epistemology; Harding, 2008).

Concerning research on race (and scientific racism) one begins with the question of who has an epistemic advantage: The researcher who wants to promote the idea of white superiority (e.g., see examples in Gould, 1996), or the racialized researcher who fights for diversity and inclusion? Which researchers (and which ethnicities) have been included or excluded as researchers on race? What was the position, situation and subjectivity of the researcher, and why is a researcher interested in studying race? When, how, where and why did race become a research problem? In terms of EDI, one needs to ask whether racialized people have been included or consulted on research and practices on race? Arguably, a theorizing that accounts for diversity, and that promotes epistemic equity based on inclusion, provides the conditions for the possibility of a better theorizing of race than that offered by the status quo.

An understanding of the context of discovery requires an understanding of the politics of psychology as well as the power of the human sciences to conceptualize humans. Racial research cannot be detached from politics (Tucker, 1994). From a critical perspective, the power to ask questions must be connected with a critique of European and Northern American societies, and must include a decolonial reconstruction of the role that racialization has played in Euro-American thinking and doing. In autoepistemic terms, the same questions can be directed to “me”: Why am “I” interested in studying what “I” am studying (e.g., race), the answers to which require socio-, inter-, and intra-subjective reconstructions.

(b) The context of justification has been the focus for traditional philosophies of science, as well as for psychology (Teo, 2018). The context of justification refers to the discipline’s focus on method and methodology, the primacy given by psychology to method, and the discipline’s claim, arguably unwarranted, as a natural science. The justification for knowledge claims in psychology has been based on complex research designs involving operationalizations, instruments, measures, and scales that may be verifiable, falsifiable, valid, reliable, objective, or generalizable, and involving samples and complex statistical analyses. From a critical point of view, method does not have primacy in knowledge construction if method is not combined with the question of whether a preferred method does justice to the problem of mental life, subjectivity, or race (Teo, 2021). In addition, not only do “I” need to ask why the discipline is using a particular method to study human races, but also why “I” am using that method to study human races.

The focus on method in psychology has reproduced the very results that have engendered scientific racism and the claim that psychology is a racist discipline. This means that it is not only psychologists’ participation in the politics of race that is of concern, but also that the logic of science has produced scientific racism (Teo, 2022b). One can justifiably describe the focus on method in psychology as being based on a white epistemology. For instance, many traditional psychological studies on performance differences between racialized groups have been epistemically narrow and have reproduced the status quo. The focus on finding statistically significant differences that neglect the voices of the Other ignores the multiple possibilities to define mental life (including intelligence), is based on cultural supremacist ideas about how to approach the mind, and completely neglects the temporality and contextuality of psychological phenomena.

From the perspective of EDI, not only are diversity and inclusion relevant when it concerns the researcher, but also crucial is the question of which methodology or method (or instrument, etc.) is doing justice to the problem of diversity. For instance, giving consideration to methods in terms of their cultural and subcultural relevance would mean including researchers from diverse (e.g., racialized) backgrounds and choosing, refusing, modifying and moving beyond existing methods when conducting research. Inclusion means that diverse researchers have a say in determining how to execute a study. Equity advises that researchers with less academic power must have an equal say in conducting such studies as well as in deciding on questions and methods. There is already awareness that EDI should be addressed when it comes to sampling issues (e.g., Arnett, 2008), but a lack of cultural and ethnic diversity among researchers means that there is also a lack of real-epistemic execution. From an autoepistemic horizon, “I” need to ask myself how much of “my” theorizing or knowledge is based on a particular kind of human, and who has been included or excluded (e.g., racialized people) in decisions regarding the conduct of all aspects of a study.

From a more critical point of view, psychologists need to ask about the politics and power of method. For instance, “we” need to reconstruct why psychology appears to have many methods that are able to capture the status quo of an event or object, but only a few methods that can address possibility. For instance, Participatory Action Research (PAR) (e.g., Fine & Torre, 2021) addresses not only what is or has been taking place, but also how researchers and participants can move together to a place, through method, where change is happening or possible. Critical psychologists also need to reconstruct who (person, community, institution) or what system (political-economic, cultural) has an interest in maintaining or transcending the status quo that has benefited only certain groups.

“We” should also address which researcher-participant relationship does justice to human mental life and which methods are able to capture subjectivity. Arguably, a hierarchical relationship between researchers and participants is not the optimal way in which to capture human inter-subjectivity, and it may be more appropriate to use methods in which participants and researchers share power. Certainly, from an epistemic EDI perspective, emphasizing equity and democracy in the research relationship is desirable, and statements about racialized minority groups are problematic when they are based on a hierarchical research-participant relationship and when they exclude participants as co-researchers. Indeed, a lack of equity may engender hesitancy among racialized and Indigenous communities to participate in psychological research that is about and not with them (see also Wendt & Gone, 2012).

(c) The context of interpretation (how “we” make sense of what “we” have found; how are results / data interpreted?) is based on the fact that the realm of data is not identical with the realm of the interpretation of the data. Interpretations are underdetermined by empirical results; rather, they impart meaning to data and make results understandable (to the authors themselves, peers, audiences, readerships, textbooks, and mass media). Data are better understood through interpretations than in raw form (Teo, 2008). However, in the common rhetoric of “facts” and “empirical knowledge,” accounts of empirical differences contain data and interpretations. For instance, the interpretation that an empirical difference between two racialized groups is natural is not determined by the data, especially when the groups conduct their lives in different worlds that are the result of histories of oppression, violence, colonialism and extermination. Epistemological violence comes into play when academic interpretations of empirical results implicitly or explicitly construct the “Other” as problematic, inferior, deficient, or pathological, although alternative interpretations of results exist.

From the perspective of theorizing with epistemic EDI, the issue arises as to whether racialized Others have been included or consulted on interpretations. Moreover, did such Others have the opportunity to express their interpretations of data in the same published article? Did they have an equal opportunity to provide interpretations that address the socio-historical constitution of difference and challenge the harm (Waldron, 2012) that is done by speculative interpretations as well as by practical recommendations (e.g., segregation)? From the perspective of critical EDI, the politics and power of interpretations must be analyzed. This analysis must include the subjects of power, and the financial, social, and cultural capital that have allowed the promotion of racist interpretations of data. This analysis is also entangled with the context of discovery, where questions about the funding for scientific racism need to be addressed (see Tucker, 2002). How much harm has been done to racialized groups when scientific-racist works are retracted only decades after their publication? (Retraction Notice, 2021).

Finally, in the (d) the context of translation (dissemination), questions about how research has been conveyed, used, applied, and implemented need to be answered. What “knowledge” has been given or not given away to the public? What are the consequences of this knowledge for racialized communities (in the public)? EDI can also be implemented in regard to the diversity of authors, editors, and reviewers, given the crucial roles that they play in knowledge translation. Real problems of inclusion and equity emerge when it comes to the language of publication and the historically constituted reality that English has become the lingua franca for psychological research, while, increasingly, speakers of that dominant language seem disinterested in learning second languages. A similar argument can be made concerning the lack of diversity in publication outlets when journal ranking is established quantitatively, and when local sources for giving psychological research away are automatically discarded. Likewise, one can also highlight the need for more diversity among knowledge translators (science/psychology journalists), which might challenge interpretations and recommendations, especially when the socio-political dimensions of race research are pointed out. In short, the politics and power of psychological knowledge dissemination must be analyzed, as should the inclusion of racialized communities when results are given away to the public.

The recommendation is that theorizing psychological topics, such as race, ethnicity or culture, can be improved by asking systematic questions based on the contexts of discovery, justification, interpretation, and translation through the lenses of epistemic EDI. Such questioning or theorizing can change Western models of human beings and their mental life and also conventional models of psychological science. In addition, theorizing with (critical) EDI has both epistemic and practical consequences. A more inclusive and diverse democratic science engages participants as co-researchers and strives for a methodology that does justice to the topic at hand. Such a methodology may include qualitative methods when it comes to first-person experiences, but qualitative methods alone will not solve the issue of the kinds of questions that are asked, the kinds of interpretations that are put forward, and what is done with research concerning racialized communities.

Qualitative and quantitative approaches require a theorizing that looks at the whole process of research (all contexts) through a hermeneutics of EDI as well as through a hermeneutics of power (critical EDI), with the latter addressing the role of supremacy in the contexts of discovery, justification, interpretation, and translation, as well as in the overall research program that is advanced in communities, institutions, and the society as a whole. The power to ask for EDI or to refuse EDI needs to be challenged with financial, cultural and historical scholarship. Researching with (critical) EDI becomes a mode for analyzing the subject matter in a new way (Overton & Reese, 1973), one that enables better theorizing. In its most radical form, critical EDI could question whether dividing the research process into four contexts is helpful and, if not, whether a radically different vision for psychological work should be developed (see also Beshara, 2019; Brown & Stenner, 2009).

Conclusion: Theorizing Beyond Problematization

Theorizing with (critical) EDI has consequences. Being inclusive, focusing on diversity, and being equitable in all dimensions of the research process indicates that psychology would be less likely to make groups of people into problems (see also Thorne et al., 2019). Historically and currently, racialized people have been made into problems socio-politically, for instance, through the passing of laws, rules, and regulations that benefit groups with power (e.g., consider laws against racialized migrants). Problematization can be accomplished theoretically and ideologically through the mass and social media, and through interpretations in academia, in which giving psychology away explicitly or implicitly hints at inferiority. Academically, racialized minorities (and other groups) can be made into problems through limited research questions, inadequate interpretations, and the selective dissemination of research to the public, through performativity and tokenism, but also through empirical methods, when methods do not do justice to the temporality and contextuality of discourses on race. Nowadays, the selective visualization of racialized minorities also contributes to the making of human beings into problems. The important point is that the problem-making of racialized groups can occur empirically through repeated testing and the findings of differences that accommodate interpretations. An accumulation of data (e.g., showing difference) is insufficient if unaccompanied by solid theorizing that requires an understanding of history, culture, society, lifeworlds, communities, and power.

From the critical perspective of epistemic EDI, psychologists need to interrogate not only the lack of human diversity in the history of psychology, including performativity/tokenism, but also the lack of diversity when it comes to constructing and institutionalizing methods, interpretations, and disseminations. Dismantling racism in academic psychology means choosing a psychology for/with people over a psychology about/to people, with the former becoming an epistemic and ethical imperative. Critical EDI means a move from understanding “racialized people” as a problem to understanding the problems that “racialized people” encounter in given socio-cultural contexts (such as the United States). Theorizing with critical EDI accounts for the diversity of human beings while understanding that knowledge is embedded in culture, history and society.

Theorizing must include the contexts of discovery, justification, interpretation, and translation and must account for critical EDI at all stages of research. To address these issues the psychological sciences must develop a broader horizon that includes the psychological humanities. Thus, what do other disciplines say about race, racialization, and racism? For example, the history of racism (e.g., Hannaford, 1996) tells us about how questions about race came into being, were expanded, and influenced current societies. Such a history also indicates that the theorizing of race cannot be limited to a focus on quantitative empirical results, but must be interdisciplinary. Theorizing based on statistical data must be challenged because data do not speak for themselves. The call for more data collection must be balanced with a call for more theorizing and training in the psychological humanities. Arguably, most psychologists are unaware of or have not been trained on how to advance good theorizing.

Theorizing based on reflexivity is a project that cannot be accomplished intra-subjectively but requires inter-subjectivity. Taking EDI seriously calls for an engagement with diverse communities and individuals, including racialized persons. “I” need to open “my” theorizing to comments, critique, and revisions based on the expertise of racialized communities. EDI helps to bracket “my” experiences, models of humanity, and self-understanding of science. Theorizing from an autoepistemic point of view could be used to question whether a race-blind approach is able to dismantle “my” own racism in research. But autoepistemology requires inter-subjectivity and the recognition that a race-blind approach in research does not do psycho-social justice to racialized people (Neville et al., 2016). A race-blind approach does epistemic injustice in research because it repeats the problems outlined above, including in regard to a Western model of human beings and science, which remain both problematic and misleading if EDI remains unaccounted for.

Finally, a new theorizing in psychology includes analyses of power that include interrogations regarding why theorizing with EDI has not gained traction. Analyses of power can draw on critical, feminist, Foucauldian, anti-racist, decolonial and Indigenous approaches—with power not being a descriptive but an analytic category. In a Kantian move, “we” should ask about the conditions that have made discourses on EDI absent and only recently more relevant (although only at the margins of the discipline, and often in a token way), and about the backlash that has emerged once it gained attention. One condition is the unequal racialized power distribution when it comes to the field of psychology. These power differences need to be articulated, on the background of Whiteness and Euromericanism, as a racial epistemic contract that exists in the discipline of psychology (see also Mills, 1997).

Models produce families of theories (Overton & Reese, 1973). Within a European human model as the norm and a Euro-American model of scientific psychology, “we” find a family of theories on race in psychology where the Other has been understood as a deviation from the norm and as deficient. This family of theories draws not only on scientific studies but also on studies in the psychological humanities. Even Western models of human beings with which we sympathize because they account for complexity, are not neutral models because they also stem from a cultural and historical tradition. Tradition itself is not problematic, but it can become so when it is not disclosed; the same applies to assumptions that feed the tradition. Arguably, objectivity in the human sciences must include a new standard that involves disclosing traditions, prejudices, models, and assumptions of research, rather than leaving them hidden.

A decontextualized, abstract model of humanity and science does less justice to the problem than a contextualized and temporalized model. A contextualized model of humanity not only understands that humans conduct their lives in history, culture, and society (which arguably itself is abstract), but also requires a deep articulation of those contexts when studying human beings. For instance, in the United States, race as a socially constructed category has shaped and is shaping the concrete lives of people (e.g., Silva, 2013). Systemic racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2021) is the unaccounted for experience of many racialized people. Being the Other and being Otherized is also the experience of many racialized individuals and communities. The assumption that psychological testing or other institutional practices play out the same way in all communities, or that a psychological instrument or method considered reliable and valid in one context can be transported to another, is a biased assumption (see Enriquez, 1992).

The lack of epistemic EDI in psychological knowledge reproduces a white epistemology of how “we” must do psychology, and also reinforces a model of an isolated subjectivity, when in reality socio-subjectivity, inter-subjectivity, and intra-subjectivity are entangled. Disentangling, isolating, reifying, and operationalizing problems into variables will not do justice to the lived experiences of racialized minorities. Theorizing and researching with epistemic EDI is a step towards a research reality in which racialized people are seen and heard, and towards changing lifeworlds and a system in which racism is hidden. As such, (critical) EDI as an epistemic category, together with institutional and educational EDI, has the potential to contribute to the dismantling of a racism in psychology that has existed for too long.

Of course, on a cautionary note, epistemic EDI may experience the same pitfalls—such as performativity and tokenism—that organizational-institutional EDI has encountered. As such, epistemic EDI, in taking a more critical turn, must move beyond ameliorative approaches that merely give the appearance of addressing EDI, must interrogate and change systems of power, and must refrain from making humans into problems, in order to be truly, and radically, transformative.