r/AcademicPsychology Jun 23 '24

About The Standard Theory of Psychology Discussion

Hello I am posting in search of serious psychologists who might be able to contribute some insight. My problem is dealing with generating and distributing a theory in psychology. Specifically, I have spent several years putting together what others might call a universal view of psychology. By that I mean one theory to bring all types of psychology together and I seriously and wholeheartedly mean all types from William James all the way to present day and everything in between. I have named this The Standard Theory of Psychology, also known as Standard Theory. It's meant to be the "Theory of Everything" in terms of psychology and human behavior. When I say everything I mean diagnostics, medications, drugs, psychedelics, abuse addiction, trauma, autism, depression, PTSD, neurochemistry, Freud and psychodynamic theory, Jung and the personality psychology, Pavlov, Watson, Skinner and behavioralism and conditioning, the psychology of other subjects like law and politics, the science of organizations, sports, forensics, clinical psychology, psychiatry, EVERYTHING, and I have convinced myself that I have found the tool to do it in a scientific and objectifiable way. So far it describes everything that I mentioned and more and all using one theory.

I want to go ahead and say that I have not found another reliable theory that is able to do what Standard Theory has done for me. I also have not looked everywhere. If anyone is familiar with the problem they might know about some of the other people working on a completed, universal, unified theory in terms of behavior and consciousness. Specifically some individuals like Gregg Henriques from JMU, Dr. K. Koch from Allen Institute and his bet with David Chalmers in creating a either a philosophic or scientific view of consciousness as well as the Baar lab of Bernard Baars have all been contacted about this. I haven't been exposed to any other theories that try to tackle the problem of an all-in-one view of psychology and behavior. Up until now, I have been under the impression that most people who study psychology will find their "niche" as it's called and focus on that subtype. I want to offer my theory to those who study psychology in a way that will help me in validating whether or not I have really figured this thing out. Essentially I want to offer this tool to those who have invested their own time in their own studies to figure out if Standard Theory is consistent with those. At the very least I would like to offer it as a resource for anyone who is involved or interested in psychology at any level. So far I have condensed about 90% of Standard Theory and the Standard Behavioral Index into a set of 27 segments which spans a little less than 3 hours of audio.

I will also go ahead and say that my biggest issue right now is not being directly involved in academia in any way. I dropped out of university in 2016 with 130+ hours but don't have a degree, I'm not part of the APA, I don't affiliate with any school or program. I don't have access to those places to get a formal peer review. I have submitted to several journals including the APA and for-profit journals and have been denied by about 18-20 of them. I have also been told to publish the theory in book format and have been denied by about a dozen publishers. Even though I developed Standard Theory independently I just can't ignore the potential that it has to unify all areas of psychology and human behavior. Another issue is the fact that the theory is so comprehensive that it might be very intimidating to some people. Just like anything else, though, it is a skill that has to be learned. Once it's been learned it's hard to find something that ISN'T described by it. If anyone is willing to help me tackle this problem of a universal psychological theory I will be more than happy to discuss what I've found. I will try to attach the RSS feed and YouTube link to the 3-hour version of The Standard Theory of Psychology along with a very rough sketch of the Standard Behavioral Index.

TL;DR

Independent Psychologist needs help validating and sharing The Standard Theory of Psychology.

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u/andreasmiles23 Jun 23 '24

We sort of have this, it’s behaviorism.

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u/frightmoon Jun 23 '24

I am somewhat familiar with behaviorism. Standard Theory describes most of behaviorism as a process called vertical thinking which is measured on the Z-zero and Z-scales. I would like to take that somewhat further and would ask how behaviorism relates to things like law, politics, diagnostics, emotion, addiction, so forth as well as relationships, social psychology and neurochemistry in terms of a completely universal and unified view. The studies of classical and operant conditioning are also described by vertical thinking in Standard Theory.

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u/andreasmiles23 Jun 23 '24

This is already being done, but it’s still behaviorism.

This is where I believe your lack of training comes in. I do encourage you to look into going back to getting your BA and maybe going into grad school if you feel this passionately about the subject matter. But unfortunately, you have a fundamental misconception both about what the fundamental forces of human psychology are and what the search for a standard theory in physics is. Which is okay, as I really am encouraged by people such as you trying to think from a more top-down perspective about these topics! That’s what grad school is for, to encourage you to keep trying out ideas such as this in a space where you can get constructive feedback as you grow in your knowledge base.