![]() ![]() As early as 1933, Rosenthal and Rosnow (2009 reprint) point out in their research the influences of human bias – subjectivity, to put it succinctly – on research findings. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Reiss and Sprenger (2020) question the reachability of objectivity and see the final understanding of it as an ongoing project. Nevertheless, several authors from different fields question the current concept of scientific objectivity as a sufficient criterion for establishing a scientific fact. Scientific communities agree that objectivity is necessary to ensure that a scientific fact is indeed a scientific fact. Ideally, objectivity ensures the necessary distance to the subject of interest, it prevents the scientist from subjectivity and (emotional) involvement. Scientific thinking deals with objective facts if knowledge is scientific, it is objective and objectifiable. ![]() This view on objectivity comes very close to what recent methodologies understand as objectivity: findings are scientific if they are reproducible and intersubjectively testable. From a traditional scientific view, Popper (1972) saw objectivity as the correct application of scientific methods and procedures to make accurate predictions. According to Daston and Galison (2010), who provide a comprehensive history of the concept, objectivity, as we use it in science today, emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and is associated with the ability to display “the world as it is,” aided by the invention of photography. The modern idea of objectivity grew in times of Enlightenment when scientific thinking took over the dogmatic thinking of the Christian church in Europe. In test statistics, objectivity is one of the three main quality criteria for psychological tests, along with reliability and validity, and refers to the test’s procedure, result, analysis, and interpretation, being independent of the person conducting the test. The American Psychological Association (APA) 1 defines objectivity as (1) “the tendency to base judgments and interpretations on external data rather than on subjective factors, such as personal feelings, beliefs, and experiences (2) a quality of a research study such that its hypotheses, choices of variables studied, measurements, techniques of control, and observations are as free from bias as possible ” and as opposite of subjectivity. From an anthropological perspective, Tomasello (2020) sees the need for social inclusion already in children, which requires objectivity as a developmental prerequisite for adopting different perspectives and social inclusion. According to Gaukroger (2012), objectivity is the capacity to stand back from our perceptions, beliefs, and opinions, and to shift perspective. The concept bears different, although related, definitions. It reflects a central specificity of modern science. Objectivity is a core criterion for achieving sound scientific results. As a result, future research programs can be organized in such a way that meta-analyses and meta-meta-analyses can be conducted not only backward but forward and prospectively as a regular and thus well-prepared part of objectification and validation processes. How the explication of perspectives can be done practically is outlined in the manuscript. Recent developments in research methodology, such as transparency, reproducibility of research processes, pre-registration of studies, or free access to raw data, analysis strategies, and syntax, promote the explication of perspectives because they make the entire research process visible. ![]() Approaches that call for the integration of perspective into objectivity at the epistemological level or that systematically incorporate different perspectives at the statistical level already exist and are brought together in the manuscript. The more result-biasing perspectives are known, the more a phenomenon of interest can be disentangled from these perspectives. It outlines how improved objectivity can be achieved by systematically incorporating multiple perspectives, thereby improving the validity of science. This manuscript contributes to a future definition of objectivity by bringing together recent statements in epistemology and methodology.
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