The Recovery of Introspection: An ethnography and history of experimental psychology

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Dr. Emily Martin of New York University will conduct research studying how three innovative experimental psychology labs are changing how they study human behavior. In most experimental psychology labs, elicitations of subject's introspections were abandoned after psychology and anthropology split apart at the turn of the 20th century. Recently, however, some labs have begun to use introspections to understand behavior. Dr. Martin will investigate how these psychologists are attempting to do so, and will thereby contribute to the anthropology of science, the anthropology and psychology of subjectivity, and science and technology studies. The project will employ a range of social science research methods in three laboratory settings in different parts of the U.S., including participant observation, interviews, and close attention to what counts as data for the psychologists, as well as an ongoing survey of media coverage of this science. The researcher will follow experiments in each of the three labs, carefully chronicling how topics such as rumination, insight, attention, or choice develop. Through the general interest magazine, Anthropology Now, and through a series of public lectures, Dr. Martin will produce and disseminate new knowledge about the process of research in these innovative labs. This anthropological analysis will help give the public a more accurate understanding of how science advances. The research was co-funded by the Cultural Anthropology Program, the Science, Technology, and Society Program, the Social Psychology Program, and the Perception, Action, and Cognition Program.