Compared to understandings of the social causes of the creation and diffusion of biological and physical sciences, how social scientific knowledge is developed and deployed is less well understood. This study fills that gap by analyzing how training sessions transmit tacit and explicit knowledges, and how that transmission process feeds back to laboratory and other knowledge production settings. To do so, a team of interdisciplinary investigators examine a selection of over one thousand hours of training videos that seek to transmit psychological science to users. The findings provide new insights about how varied settings and modes of transmission shape the distribution and uptake of social science research.
Broader Impacts
This research project enhances infrastructure for social science research and education by fostering collaborations between institutions, and training of undergraduate and graduate student researchers. It also creates an online database that is available to other analysts of the dynamics of the creation and deployment of psychological sciences.
Through analysis of a recently published archive of training videos for therapists on how to work with members of social minority groups, our work sought to explore how professional psychologists create and use science about human cutlural diversity in both graduate education and behind the typically closed door of the therapy session. This unique approach allows us to examine psychology --- as an academic discipline and an applied science -- from a sociological perspective in the interest of illuminating scientific knowledge production and practice in action. The intellectual merit of this work lies in its contributions to both interdisciplinary science and technology studies (STS) and psychology. This research addresses a relative lack of attention given to psychotherapy as a site of knowledge production and practice within the sociology of science, medical sociology, and STS. Our project furthers understanding of the construction and dissemination of scientific norms in the applied social sciences, particularly how research scientists, practioners, and users co-create knowledge about multiculturalism, social inequality, and positive mental health. Within psychology, this work highlights the competencies (i.e., knowledge and skill sets) necessary for research on, and work with, diverse populations. We found that what defines and distinguishes these "multicultural" competencies both reflects scientific norms and is highly contested, specifically when it comes to ideas about whether unique populations warrant unique forms of treatment. Ultimately, our work has the goal of fostering awareness about how social minorities interact with scientific and medical institutions, namely those whose charge is the development and delivery of mental health services. This research involved both undergraduate and graduate research assistants at multiple campuses, as well as the development of an online, open-access database of research in STS and psychology.
