Special issue of Social Epistemology on Psychology of Science and Technology (PDF)

Editors:
Greg Feist, San Jose State University, (gregfeist@gmail.com)
Michael E. Gorman, University of Virginia, (meg3cstar@gmail.com)

This special issue calls for papers from any discipline that focuses on the psychological dimensions of science and technology, and can also include book reviews, essays, commentaries, less formal research pieces, and replies to articles published in other journals. Deadline for submissions is February 1 of each year; late manuscripts will automatically be considered for the next year, and can, of course, be labeled In Press if and when they go through review and are accepted. Accepted articles go online and get DOI numbers well before they appear in print about a year after submission.

Psychology of science can include:

• Cognitive Science: the kind of thinking and problem-solving strategies that are used by scientists and engineers. Here work in history of science and technology can make a great contribution to the psychological understanding of how scientists think and work. Cognitive scientists also have a great deal to contribute here, including computational models of scientific processes that can be tested empirically.
• Personality: what sorts of people go into science and engineering, and are there personality types that prefer this kind of work and do better at it?
• Social psychology: the way in which scientists and engineers cooperate and compete with each other, how collaborative teams form,  what kinds of social norms emerge in laboratories, teams, disciplines (normal science) and how are these taught to newcomers and what leads them to change?
• Sociology: Is science a unique form of human activity, or does it resemble most other human activities in terms of the kinds of norms that are developed and the way controversies are resolved? What are the contents of scientific and technological expertise and what (if anything) distinguishes them from other forms of expertise? (Here the work of the Studies of Expertise and Experience group is especially relevant and welcome in these issues).
• Anthropology: Here research focuses on immersion in science and engineering groups and communities, to get the perspective of insiders without ‘going native’.
• Philosophy of science: What makes science and engineering different from other forms of inquiry? What epistemological issues do scientist face? Engineers?
• Ethics: What constitutes ethical practice in science? In engineering?  Is it field-specific, or are there general norms (like Merton’s) that can cover a wide range of scientific and/or engineering disciplines?
• Policy: The Science of Science and Innovation Policy community, the Center for Science Policy Outcomes and the Woodrow Wilson Center both do excellent work on what policies and strategies are most likely to produce science and technology outcomes that will at least do no harm and at best improve the future of our species and planet.

There are more communities of expertise than those listed above that could be mentioned. Because of the variety of disciplines that can contribute, we hope authors will remember that their methods and findings need to be described in ways that this broader readership could potentially understand.

For more information on psychology of science, see:

Feist, G. and Gorman, M.E.  Handbook of the Psychology of Science.  Springer, 2013
Gorman, M.E. (Editor) (2010) Cognition in science and technology. Topics in Cognitive Science. 1 (4): 675-776; 2 (1): 15-100.
Gorman, M. E. (2008). Scientific and technological expertise. Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology, 1(1), 23-31.
Feist, G. 2006. The psychology of science and the origins of the scientific mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gorman, M. E., Tweney, R. D., Gooding, D. C., & Kincannon, A. (Eds.). (2005). Scientific and technological thinking. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Feist, G., and M. E. Gorman. 1998. The psychology of science: Review and integration of a nascent discipline. Review of General Psychology 2 (1): 3-47.
R. Shadish & S. Fuller (Eds) (1994) Social psychology of science., New York: Guilford Press: 3-123.

Tweney, R. D. (1998). Towards a cognitive psychology of science: Recent research and its implications. Current Directions in Psychological Science 7 (5) (October): 150-3.
Gorman, M. E., Simulating Science: Heuristics and Mental Models in Technoscientific Thinking.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.

Direct inquiries to either or both of the editors above. Submit manuscripts to: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tsep20/current

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Tags: Call for Papers, Greg Feist, Mike Gorman, psychology of science, Psychology of Science and Technology, Psychology of Technology