What is it?Psychology of Science views science as a human enterprise and understands that many of the strengths and weaknesses of the scientific world depend on how its members work and live together. As a sub-discipline, it aims to cover any metascientific approach that applies the empirical methods or conceptual frameworks of psychology to understand or support the way science is done.
Why do we need it?
Psychologists are already involved in metascience, but unlike philosophy and sociology, psychology has no dedicated approach to studying the scientific world. Without disciplinarity and institutionalization (e.g., dedicated journals, departments, PhD programs, grants) researchers’ efforts are often limited to ad-hoc metascience projects instead of systematic research programs. Themes such as wellbeing in science, cognitive psychology of researchers, team dynamics in science, behavior change interventions in science, social biases in science, and human error in research need to become established topics of psychological research. This is what this initiative aims to achieve.
