Saber psicológico e saber algorítmico: uma análise foucaultiana acerca das transformações dos modos de quantificação da vida subjetiva

Abstract

What impel this research is, beforehand, the enthusiasm to think about the relationship between Psychology and current forms of data tracking through informational technologies. With the expansion of data tracking forms, big data seems to offer the possibility of a change in the structure of data available on subjects. At this juncture, this research addresses the way in which statements that position data as neutral and devoid of political positions trigger the will to truth that authorizes such methods to reinforce worldviews, prejudice and standards of normality - producing updated forms of control and constraint of the subjects. In this sense, one cannot distance the spread of the use of terms such as “algorithms” and “big data” when these appear specifically to forge reliability and produce truths. Thus, the question that impelled this research points the lens to the strange relationship established between science renowned as knowing about subjectivity and the mapping of captured data. The hypothesis of this research conjectures that the algorithmic analysis of data in an approach to Psychology is established in continuity with the efforts of psychology knowledge towards validity strategically performed through quantification. In this sense, although the strategies of these data-based psychologies present themselves as harbingers of transformation and overcoming past limitations, this scene is much more like a rerun of a familiar plot: once again, psychology makes the metrics part of your utility belt, therefore, it can compete for a place among the relevant knowledge of your time. Thus, the research asks: if the “era of big data” has transformed the structure of available data on subjects, what effective transformations would this be producing in the field of Psychology? Is big data the possibility of an integrally numerical Psychology? For this analysis, the research was divided into three stages: the first two chapters were used to design what will work as a background for this research: a) a first background addresses the use of big data in the centrality of several related processes to subjects and societies, supporting conduct of conduct practices through massive data monitoring; b) a second background for the research is the design of a trajectory of psychological knowledge guided by the relationship between this knowledge and attempts at quantification. These two backgrounds are the necessary subsidies for the third moment of this research, as in a meeting of these two flows: c) the analysis of the discursive stratum that emerges from the encounter between Psychology and its external supports, in this case Data Science. The research, therefore, covers aspects of a modus operandi of Psychology in the search to establish itself as legitimate knowledge, pursuing to highlight the alliances with forces that meet the criteria of each opportunity, whether the canons of scientificity or the marketing trend of the value of digital tracks.