Abstract
This chapter highlights the important contribution that psychology has to make to our understanding of scientific performance through research in the fields of cognitive and organisational psychology. Previous research on the psychology of science has tended to concentrate on such factors as family and religious background, birth order, gender, age, and personality, the results of which have been of limited use to science practitioners and those interested in improving a scientist’s performance. This chapter examines the more promising results from research in the areas of cognitive and organisational psychology. In particular it examines recent findings in these areas which highlight the importance of the research environment in our understanding of how scientists think, act and engage in their research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amabile, T.M. (1994). The atmosphere of pure work: Creativity in research and development. In W. R. Shadish & S. Fuller (Eds.) The social psychology of science(pp.). New York: Guilford Press
Amabile, T.M.(1983). The social psychology of creativity. New York Springer Verlag
Amabile, T.M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organisations. In B. M. Staw,. & L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organisational behaviour. Greenwich, CT: JAI
Andrews, F. M. (1967). Creative ability: The laboratory environment and scientific performance. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 14(2), 76-83
Argyris, C. (1968). On the effectiveness of research and development organizations. American Scientist, 56(4), 344-355.
Baker, L.M., & Dunbar, K. (2000). Experimental design heuristics for scientific discovery: The use of “baseline” and “known standard”controls. International Journal of Human Computer Studies53(3), 335-349.
Baumgartel, H. (1956). Leadership, motivation, and attitudes in research laboratories. Journal of Social Issues, 12(2), 24-31
Bell, E.T. (1937). Men of mathematics. New York: Simon & Shuster.
Benbow, C.P. (1988). Sex differences in mathematical reasoning ability in intellectually talented preadolescents: Their nature, effects, and possible causes. Behavioral and Brain Science,11, 169-183
Berry, C. (1999). Religious traditions as contexts of historical creativity: Patterns of scientific and artistic achievement and their stability. Personality and Individual Differences,26(6), 1125-1135
Berry, C. (1981). The Nobel scientist and the origins of scientific achievement British Journal of Sociology,32, 381-391
Bland, C.J., & Ruffin, M.T. (1992). Characteristics of a productive research environment: Literature review. Academic Medicine,67, 385-397
Bouchard, T.J., Jr., & McGue, M., (1981). Familial studies of intelligence: A review. Science,212, 1055-1059
Chambers, J.A. (1964). Relating personality and biographical factors if scientific creativity. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied,78, 1–20.
Chambers, J.A. (1965). Comments. Science,147, 67.
Chawla, A., &Singh, J.P. (1998). Organizational environment and performance of research groups- a typological analysis. Scientometrics,43(3), 373-391.
Chambers, J.A. (1965). Comments. Science, 147, 67
Chawla, A., &Singh, J.P. (1998). Organizational environment and performance of research groups- a typological analysis. Scientometrics,43(3), 373-391
Chi, M.T.H., Feltovich, P.J., &Glazer, R. (1981). Categorisation and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive Science , 5, 121-152
Clement, J. (1991). Experts and science students: The use of analogies, extreme cases, and physical intuition. In J.F. Voss, D.N. Perkins, &J. W. Segal (Eds.), Informal reasoning and education(pp. 345-362).
Cole, J.R. (1987). Women in science. In D. Jackson & P. Rushton (Eds.), Scientific Excellence(pp. 359-375)
Datta, L. E. (1967). Family religious background and early scientific creativity. American Sociological Review,32, 626-635
De May, M. (1992). The cognitive paradigm. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Dunbar, K. (1995). How scientists really reason: Scientific reasoning in real-world laboratories. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Davidson (Eds.), The nature of insight(pp. 365 396). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Dunbar, K.,&Blanchette I. (2001). The in vivo/in vitro approach to cognition: the case of analogy. Trends in Cognitive Science 5(8), 334-339
Feist G. J.,&Gorman, M. E. (1998). The psychology of science: Review and integration of a nascent discipline. Review of General Psychology, 2(1), 3–47
Feist, G. J. (1991). The psychology of science: Personality, cognition, motivational and working styles of eminent and less eminent scientists. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
Helson, R.,&Crutchfield, R. S. (1970). Mathematicians: The creative researcher and the average PhD. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 34, 250-257
Holyoak, K. J.,& Thagard, P. (1995). Mental leaps. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Horner, K. L., Rushton, J.P., &Vernon, P. A. (1986). Relation between ageing and research productivity of academic psychologists. Psychology of Ageing, 4, 319-324
Hurley, J. (1997). Organisation and Scientific Discovery. John Wiley: Chichester.
John-Steiner, V. (1985). Notebooks of the mind. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Klahr, D., Fay, A. L.,&Dunbar, K. (1993). Heuristics for scientific experimentation: A developmental study. Cognitive Psychology, 13, 113-148
Kruglanski, A. W. (1994). The social-cognitive bases of scientific knowledge. In W. R. Shadish & S. Fuller (Eds.) The social psychology of science(pp. 197-213). New York: Guilford
Kuhn, T. (1989). Children and adults as intuitive scientists. Psychological Review, 96(4), 674-689
Larkin, J. H., McDermitt, J., Simon, D.P., &Simon, H. A. (1980). Expert and novice performance in solving physics problems. Science, 208, 1335-1342
Long, J. S. (1992). Measures of sex differences in scientific productivity. Social Forces, 71, 159-178
Lykken, D.T., McGue, M., Tellegen A.,&Bouchard, T.J.Jr. (1992) Emergenesis: Genetic traits that may not run in families. American Psychologist, 47, 1565-1577
Maccoby, E. E., &Jacklin, C. N. (1974). The psychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press
Maclntyre, T. (1997). Gender differences in cognition: A minefield of research issues. Irish Journal of Psychology, 18(4) 386-396
Mahoney, M. J. (1977). Publication prejudices: An experimental study of confirmatory bias in the peer review system. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1, 161-175
Martin, J. (1998) Organizational Behaviour. ITP: London
Moorhead, B.,& Griffin, R. W. (1998) Organizational Behavior: Managing people in organizations. Houghton Mifflin Company: New York
Mouly, S. V.,&Sankaran, J. K. (1998). The behaviour of Indian R&D project groups: An ethnographic study. Advances in Qualitative Research, 1, 137-160.
Pelz, D. C.,&Andrews, F. M. (1976). Scientists in organisations. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press.
Reed, E. (1997). The cognitive revolution from an ecological point of view. In D.M Johnson &C.E. Erneling (Eds.),The future of the cognitive revolution(pp. 261-274). Oxford: Oxford University Press
Robins, R.W., Fraley R.C., Roberts B.W., &Trzesniewski KH. (2001). A longitudinal study of personality change in young adulthood. Journal of Personality, 69(4), 617-640
Roe, A. (1952). The making of a scientist. New York: Dodd, Mead
Simonton, D. K. (1988a). Scientific genius: A psychology of science. Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press
Simonton, D. K. (1988b). Age and outstanding achievement: What do we know after a century of research? Psychological Bulletin, 104, 251-267.
Simonton, D. K. (1992). The social context of career success and course for 2,026 scientists and inventors. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 452-463.
Sonnert, G. (1995). What makes a good scientist? Determinants of peer evaluation among biologists. Social Studies of Science, 25, 35-55
Subotnik, R. F., & Steiner, C.L. (1992). Adult manifestations of adolescent talent in science. Roeper Review, 15, 164-169
Subotnik, R. F., Duschl, R. A., & Selmon, E. H. (1993). Retention and attrition of science talent: A longitudinal study of Westinghouse science talent search winners. International Journal of Science Education, 15, 61-72.
Sulloway, F. (1996). Born to rebel: Birth order, family dynamics, and creative lives. New York: Pantheon.
Thamhain, H. J., Wilemon, D. L. (1987). Building high performance engineering project teams. IEEE Transactions on engineering Management, 34(3), 130-137
Unesco, (1979). Scientific Productivity: The effectiveness of research groups in six countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Vandenberg, S. G. (1988). Could these sex differences be due to genes? Behavioural and Brain Science, 11, 212-214
Werts, C. E., & Watley, D. J. (1972). Paternal influence on talent development. Journal of Counselling Psychology, 19, 367-373
Zuckerman, H. (1977). Scientific elite. New York: Free Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ryan, J.C. (2003). The contribution of cognitive psychology and organisational psychology to our understanding of scientific performance. In: Hurley, J. (eds) Scientific Research Effectiveness. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0275-2_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0275-2_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-3961-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-0275-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive