Dynamical Systems Theory in Psychology: Assistance for the Lay Reader is Required

erated interest and excitement in psychological research, as demonstrated by the recent statement, “...the dynamical perspective has emerged as a primary paradigm for the investigation of psychological processes at different levels of personal and social reality” (Vallacher et al., 2010, p. 263). What is less clear to the authors is the degree to which this excitement is justified. Like many psychology researchers, we were initially unfamiliar with the concepts, terminology, and techniques used in DST modeling (an approach that was developed in physics), which made it difficult to judge applications of DST in the articles we encountered. After reading introductory DST material, we developed some opinions about how authors of DST-related articles could help psychologists who are not familiar with DST [hereafter referred to as “lay reader(s)”] to begin to make judgments about their work. In order for DST to be a useful methodology for psychology research, we believe, DST-based work must be reasonably accessible to other psychologists. Although we are restricting our discussion to the application of DST methodology to clinical psychology research, we believe that the following three recommendations may be applied to the field of psychology more broadly.