History of psychology (discipline)

The discipline is related to the history of human science, the history of emotions, and the history of psychiatry. These must be considered separately, however, as they have their own disciplinary norms.

The new history of psychology

It is now common practice, when teaching advanced courses in the history of psychology, to follow Laurel Furumoto in making a distinction between old and new history. This label was intended to recognize a shift in disciplinary norms that first became apparent, in retrospect, in the 1970s. Before that, the history of psychology was harshly criticized by specialist historians of science for being celebratory and Whiggish.

In other words, the contemporary history of psychology is broadly describable as post-Kuhnian. As a result, it shares traits with contemporary historiography of science, science and technology studies, and the sociology of scientific knowledge. Kurt Danziger's book, Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research, is often considered exemplary of this approach.

Feminist voices

The realization that previous histories had been celebratory led to a search for subjects who had been dismissed for reasons unrelated to their own merit. This effort continues to rediscover extremely significant contributions by women to the formation of psychology, which had become invisible as a result of the way in which the old histories had been written. In this, the influence of E. G. Boring's old history continues to be felt today.

Internationalization and indigenization

The critique that psychology is itself biased as a science by its focus on WEIRD subjects coincided with a move toward the internationalization of the history of psychology. This now has two main lines—the way in which psychology has developed as a discipline in different geographical locations and the way in which psychological expertise has changed as it has moved between national contexts. This is often referred to simply as indigenization.