The Unbuilt Bench
Experimental Psychology on the Verge of Science
$53.59
- Paperback
328 pages
- Release Date
22 May 2025
Summary
Psychological experts are omnipresent across public and private spheres. Nonetheless, psychology has always been dogged by questions about its authority and validity. Psychological research has yielded relatively few unambiguous successes, and the widely publicized “replication crisis” has called much of the published literature into question. How closely akin to other experimental sciences is psychology, and should its findings be assessed by the same standards? What makes psychology distinc…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780231217323 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0231217323 |
| Author: | David Andrew Peterson |
| Publisher: | Columbia University Press |
| Imprint: | Columbia University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 328 |
| Release Date: | 22 May 2025 |
| Weight: | 404g |
| Dimensions: | 140mm x 216mm |
You Can Find This Book In
Critics Review
Named a notable book of 2025. * Behavioral Scientist *
In this highly original comparative study, Peterson digs deeply to discover and explain the restrictions and the benefits that psychology gets from its natural science aspirations. He offers a much-needed corrective to notions of progress and underdevelopment in science. – Karin Knorr Cetina, author of Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge
An arresting ethnography of several laboratories, The Unbuilt Bench reveals the struggles of knowledge production and identifies an underappreciated feature that psychological science might embrace to accelerate progress. “Bench building,” Peterson shows, is fundamental for increasing the capacity to accumulate insight. – Brian Nosek, cofounder of the Center for Open Science
How wonderful to see this kind of work from the new generation of researchers! – Andrew Gelman * Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science blog *
This thoughtful book provides important insights for reflection, beyond its focus on psychology. * Journal of Peace Research *
For historians and sociologists of science, Peterson’s book offers a deeply informed and richly documented case study of experimental psychology’s infrastructural impasse. For psychologists themselves, it is a mirror—sometimes sympathetic, sometimes disquieting. Above all, The Unbuilt Bench is a study in epistemic humility: a recognition that progress in the human sciences may require not better instruments but a more capacious understanding of what knowledge is and how it is generated. * H-Sci-Med-Tech *
David Andrew Peterson
David Peterson is an assistant professor of sociology at Purdue University.
Returns
This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.