Researchers in the mind sciences hold assumptions about what consciousness fundamentally is. How aware of them are they, and what do they take those assumptions to be doing in their research? Survey work establishes which positions researchers hold, suggesting reductive physicalism is dominant in neuroscience, but says little about the relationship researchers have to their positions. This qualitative pilot study asked how researchers register, or fail to register, their own metaphysical assumptions about consciousness, and how they understand the connection between those assumptions and their research practice.

Five researchers across psychology, neuroscience, and psychiatry took part in semi-structured interviews which were then analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Three themes were generated. In the first, participants describe open-mindedness as a scientific obligation, but in practice, this open-mindedness is rarely lent to alternative metaphysical positions, which tend to be engaged in thin or secondhand versions and are sometimes set aside on standards that participants' own positions would also fail. In the second, participants place consciousness at the center of psychology while describing it as irrelevant to their daily work, with the assumptions surrounding it carried implicitly more often than explicitly. In the third, participants can describe their own metaphysical commitments, but answer from adjacent elements of their worldview when asked how that position influences their work, and find it difficult to imagine holding a different position. Metaphysical commitments appear easiest to reflect on in the abstract, and most difficult to reflect on when connected to practice. This suggests that asking researchers to state their metaphysical position may not be enough to make its role in their research visible.