This course is designed to expose students to the history of psychology through a study of the methods used in research over time, with an emphasis on methods used in developmental and personality psychology. Unlike most traditional history of psychology courses, we will focus less on the emergence and differentiation of various schools of psychological thought, and more about the emergence and differentiation of various methods of empirical and theoretical inquiry. Unlike traditional methods courses, we will focus less on specific research designs and analytic techniques, and more on broader issues of inference that permeate all psychological research (i.e., meta-psychology). Unlike both traditional history and methodological courses, we will integrate a focus on the racial and socio-structural aspects of both history and methods.
Importantly, the historical focus of the course will be grounded in contemporary methodological issues in the context of the open science movement, both to illustrate how many of the current issues in the field have persisted for decades, but also to highlight the tremendous advances in potential solutions we have seen in recent years. Through this course, students will develop a basic familiarity with a core set of issues in the history of psychology and will be competent in rudimentary open science and meta-psychology. These skills are intended to greatly enhance the research acumen of the students, both as rigorous producers of new research and informed consumers of existing work.