Abstract

A critical reflection about the relevance of psychological research necessarily involves some important topics, around which psychology shaped its disciplinary identity and defined its object and methods, also in relation to other disciplines and with reference to the multiplicity of subfields, theoretical approaches and areas of application. In particular, should be useful to recall, also in historical perspective, issues such as the position of psychology between natural sciences and human sciences, the epistemological assumptions underlying, the relationship between basic and applied research, the nature of the mind, the role of social dimensions in the structuring of psychological processes.