Mapping the Development of PsychologyIvan Flis

PhD Candidate in History and Philosophy of Psychology

PSI Early Graduate Group Conference 27-28 February 2015

The Descartes Centre

for the History and Philosophy

of the Sciences and the Humanities

Outline

One map

One (hi)story

A few take-home messages (hopefully)

Wikimedia Public Domain: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Himmelwright_Stone_House_2nd_Floor_Plan.jpg

Short digression into my projectThe maps (1)

The maps (2)What do they teach us?

Let’s see on an example from the 1950s.

Outline

One map

One (hi)story

A few take-home messages

Wikimedia Public Domain: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Himmelwright_Stone_House_2nd_Floor_Plan.jpg

How did we end up with behavioral science?

Social science?

Behavioral science?

Based on, with permission, Jeff Pooley’s unpublished paper A “Not Particularly Felicitous” Phrase: A History of the “Behavioral Sciences” Label presented at a symposium in 2012. Link: http://jeffpooley.com/pubs/pooley-behavioral-sciences.pdf

Or how did the Ford Foundation coin the new name for objectivity in the 1950s

Connotations of socialism!Speculative and pre-scientific!

Palpable to biologists and other non-social scientists.Firmly rooted in quantitative methodologies.

Palpable to psychologists who resisted the moniker of social science

And note, this objectivity was powered by $417 million in assets

Outline

One map

One (hi)story

A few take-home messages

Wikimedia Public Domain: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Himmelwright_Stone_House_2nd_Floor_Plan.jpg

Take-home messages

Psychology, as any other science, is socially and historically contingent.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ivory_Tower_Flyer.jpg

Be critical!

Do not disenfranchise yourself with myths of objectivity!