Professor’s Note: In examining the ethics and methodological approaches of psychological investigation, our conversation moved us to examine critical and participatory approaches to study. Throughout our debates about these approaches, we engaged in the paradigms of scientific investigation by gaining a cursory understanding of the foundations of positivism, post-positivism, constructivism, and critical research. By focusing on participatory approaches, we analyzed the constructivist approaches to scientific investigation within psychology. In so doing, we used our understanding of paradigms to analyze two groundbreaking participatory studies in psychological research: an article by Yasser Payne of the University of Delaware, and an article by Michele Fine and Sirin Secluk of CUNY Graduate Center and NYU. Jean Santos engages Yasser Payne’s work on resiliency and economic opportunity for street-life oriented Black men and Melissa Rodnon engages in Fine and Secluk’s work Muslim Youth’s experiences in pre and post- 9/11 context.