What is History of Psychology?

Following the distinction between little-p psychology and big-P Psychology, this project approaches the History of Psychology as a “doing” separate from its “subject.” The topic is therefore more "historiography" than "history." Methods are both critical and quantitative (viz. network analysis). But the goal, ultimately, is to provide the means to characterize an organized body of knowledge --- a discipline --- using tools that show its features rather than simply reporting on them.

Researchers and partners

Partners outside of the University of Groningen

• Christopher Green, York University, Canada
• Michael Pettit, York University, Canada

Education

Other remarks on education

• I am new to the department, so I haven't had time to recruit yet. But my explicit intent with this project is to develop new methods that can be used to inform Bachelor and Master theses. The methods are general, although my particular content area is History.

Results

Publications

• Burman, J. T. (2015). Neglect of the foreign invisible: Historiography and the navigation of conflicting sensibilities. History of Psychology, 18(2), 146-169. doi: 10.1037/a0039194
• Burman, J. T. (in press). Philosophical histories can be contextual without being sociological: Comment on Araujo’s historiography. Theory & Psychology.
• Burman, J. T., Green, C. D., & Shanker, S. (2015). On the meanings of self-regulation: Digital humanities in service of conceptual clarity. Child Development, 86(5), 1507-1521. doi:10.1111/cdev.12395
• Green, C. D., Feinerer, I., & Burman, J. T. (2015). Searching for the structure of early American psychology: Networking Psychological Review, 1894-1908. History of Psychology, 18(1), 15-31. doi:10.1037/a0038406
• Green, C. D., Feinerer, I., & Burman, J. T. (2015). Searching for the structure of early American psychology: Networking Psychological Review, 1909-1923. History of Psychology, 18(2), 196-204. doi:10.1037/a0039013

Successful grant proposals and other achievements

• Invited keynote address at the 9th International Reading Recovery Institute, sponsored and organized by the International Reading Recovery Trainers Organization. Vancouver, BC. (July 2016)

More information

• National news coverage on television in Canada for article published in Child Development