Constructing the Subject
Constructing the Subject
$32.00
USDConstructing the Subject traces the history of psychological research methodology from the nineteenth century to the emergence of currently favored styles of research in the second quarter of the twentieth century. Kurt Danziger considers methodology to be a kind of social practice rather than simply a matter of technique. Therefore his historical analysis is primarily concerned with such topics as the development of the social structure of the research relationship between experimenters and their subjects, as well as the role of the methodology in the relationship of investigators to each other in a wider social context. The book begins with a historical discussion of introspection as a research practice and proceeds to an analysis of diverging styles of psychological investigation. There is an extensive exploration of the role of quantification and statistics in the historical development of psychological research. The influence of the social context on research practice is illustrated by a comparison of American and German developments, especially in the field of personality research. In this analysis, psychology is treated less as a body of facts or theories than a particular set of social activities intended to produce something that counts as psychological knowledge under certain historical conditions. This perspective means that the historical analysis has important consequences for a critical understanding of psychological methodology in general.
Reviews & endorsements
"Danziger is to be commended for his incisive and compelling archeology of investigative practices. Without a doubt, this is the most important book on the history of psychology to come along in years." Henderikus J. Stam, Contemporary Psychology
"A transformation is currently under way in the historiography of the science of psychology. and Kurt Danziger's book is one of the best of the new breed arising from that transformation... essential reading for historians of psychology, and highly recommended reading for other historians and sociologists of science." Deborah J. Coon, Isis
"...the most striking achievement in historical research within psychology since the publication of Edwin G. Boring's History of Experimental Psychology....Danziger presents psychologists with a tightly argued thesis supported by an impressive depth and breadth of scholarship. I hope that his book will initiate a profound and prolonged debate about the nature of psychology." John A. Mills, American Scientist
"...admirably documents the roots of psychology's identity conflict as a science, a trend which he shows often led psychologists away from good theory construction, only to become mired in method fetishism. In this, his history is refreshingly contemporary." Cheiron Newsletter
"Unlike most history of psychology texts, Constructing the Subject has clear and immediate relevance to those engaged in practising and teaching experimental psychology. They will not like the message but they must surely reply to it or at least acknowledge its receipt." The Times Higher Education Supplement
"...a tour de force in the new history of psychology. It transcends the old debate over internal versus external factors in the development of scientific knowledge by revealing the social processes that lead to particular kinds of knowledge claims." James H. Capshew, Theory & Psychology
"...helps to reveal the socially constructive character of psychological categories that are often taken as 'natural' entities in a reality independent of sociocultural processes. His method for doing this, however, is not ethnographic, but historical, and his book demonstrates how historical analysis can make an important contribution to the ongoing development of psychology." Harry Heft, The Psychological Record
"...essential reading for historians of psychology, and highly recommended reading for other historians and sociologists of science." Deborah J. Coon, Isis
"It is essential reading for all with an active interest in the history of our discipline and is highly recommended as well for garden-variety research practitioners who dare to consider practicing their art without taking its ways for granted." Charles W. Tolman, Canadian Psychology
Product details
January 1994Paperback
9780521467858
268 pages
232 × 155 × 21 mm
0.427kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Preface
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Historical roots of the psychological laboratory
- 3. Divergence of investigative practice: the repudiation of Wundt
- 4. The social structure of psychological experimentation
- 5. The triumph of the aggregate
- 6. Identifying the subject in psychological research
- 7. Marketable methods
- 8. Investigative practice as a professional project
- 9. From quantification to methodolatry
- 10. Investigating persons
- 11. The social construction of psychological knowledge
- Appendix
- Notes
- Index.
