"Psychology bridges the needs of the individual with the demands of society, yet despite its integration into all aspects of modern life, psychological expertise has always been dogged by questions about its validity. Although psychologists inhabit many domains, they are an authority in few. And, unlike many scientific fields, psychological research has yielded relatively few technologies that are considered unambiguous successes. There are no accomplishments in the field of psychological science that one could compare to rocketry or the polio vaccine. The field has thrived on the basis of its promise of human thought and behavior that can be predicted and controlled, yet this promise is unfulfilled. What if psychology is simply a different kind of scientific field and that progress in psychology is different? What if psychology is a field the defies categorization? In The Unbuilt Bench, David Petersen argues that the field of psychology is engaged in a different sort of epistemic activity than other experimental sciences. Through fieldwork in eleven experimental psychology labs and, as a comparison, a lab in molecular biology, Petersen shows how psychological experimentation is a special case of problem-solving. He demonstrates how psychologists are united in their aim to produce theoretically interesting and replicable findings. Central to this pursuit are the material evolutions in research practice that he calls bench-building. In psychology he argues, these are refinements that happen at the site ofdata collection, rather than contributing facts or extending existing theory. For psychologists, bench-building provides new experimental possibilities by either gaining greater control over the experimental object or refining the perception of it"--
Psychological experts are omnipresent across public and private spheres. Nonetheless, psychology has always been dogged by questions about its authority and validity. Psychological research has yielded relatively few unambiguous successes, and the widely publicized “replication crisis” has called much of the published literature into question. How closely akin to other experimental sciences is psychology, and should its findings be assessed by the same standards? What makes psychology distinct, and how do such differences affect understandings of the boundaries of science?
In The Unbuilt Bench, David Peterson argues that the scientific study of the mind and human behavior is a different sort of epistemic activity than the work of the natural sciences. Through fieldwork in ten experimental psychology laboratories and, as a comparison, a molecular biology lab, he explores the concrete practices of experimentation. Ongoing improvement of research practice and technology at the frontiers of data collection, a process Peterson calls “bench-building,” is essential to most sciences, since it opens new possibilities for experimentation. Psychology labs, however, largely lack an emphasis on bench-building. Instead, the discipline and its subfields gravitate toward different dimensions of scientific progress that focus instead on theory building and cultivation of outside audiences. An empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated exploration of experimental psychology and scientific practice, The Unbuilt Bench also offers new insight into the ethical questions that psychology’s aims raise.
Psychological experts are omnipresent across public and private spheres. Nonetheless, psychology has always been dogged by questions about its authority and validity. Psychological research has yielded relatively few unambiguous successes, and the widely publicized “replication crisis” has called much of the published literature into question. How closely akin to other experimental sciences is psychology, and should its findings be assessed by the same standards? What makes psychology distinct, and how do such differences affect understandings of the boundaries of science?
In The Unbuilt Bench, David Peterson argues that the scientific study of the mind and human behavior is a different sort of epistemic activity than the work of the natural sciences. Through fieldwork in ten experimental psychology laboratories and, as a comparison, a molecular biology lab, he explores the concrete practices of experimentation. Ongoing improvement of research practice and technology at the frontiers of data collection, a process Peterson calls “bench-building,” is essential to most sciences, since it opens new possibilities for experimentation. Psychology labs, however, largely lack an emphasis on bench-building. Instead, the discipline and its subfields gravitate toward different dimensions of scientific progress that focus on theory building and cultivation of outside audiences. An empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated exploration of experimental psychology and scientific practice, The Unbuilt Bench also offers new insight into the ethical questions that psychology’s aims raise.
In The Unbuilt Bench, David Peterson argues that the scientific study of the mind and human behavior is a different sort of epistemic activity than the work of the natural sciences.
