According to Scheier and Carver (1988), the phenomenological perspective in psychology consists of a model or models of personality constructed to explain why people often perceive the same physical realities differently. Specifically, the authors state that the phenomenological perspective answers two questions: (1) How is it that people have different experiences when exposed to the same realities?, and (2) Where do these differences come from?
The Phenomenological perspective holds that the answer to both questions involves personality. In this regard, Scheier and Carver (1988) state that the human being must, (if he/she is to understand the stimuli perceived through sensory organs), somehow organize this incoming information for meaningfulness.
Each person, therefore, filters incoming stimuli (raw data or material from the outside world) through personally created organizational structures consisting of his/her mental representations of reality. Of these mental representations, the authors state:
It can be argued that personality consists of the organization of mental structures through which the person views reality (or which is imposed upon reality). (p. 433)
As to how personality operates with respect to this interpretive function, Scheier and Carver (1988) rely heavily on the personal constructs model developed by George Kelly. The scientific method of formulating hypotheses and checking them against empirical data is, according to Kelly's model, analogous to the manner in which the human personality copes with the physical and social environment. Like a scientist, each of us in our everyday life retains those hypotheses which are confirmed by experiential evidence and discards or revises those which are denied or contradicted, our ultimate goal being to arrive at a set of hypotheses which will allow us to predict and so control our environment.
One reason why it is often difficult for people to comm...