The study of how scientists think, how scientific communities function, and how psychological factors influence the production of knowledge. Science is often presented as pure logic, but it's done by humans—with biases, emotions, social pressures, and career concerns. The psychology of science examines how these human factors affect everything from hypothesis generation (what questions seem worth asking) to experimental design (what counts as evidence) to peer review (who gets published) to paradigm shifts (why new ideas are resisted). It's not that science isn't reliable; it's that reliability is achieved despite human frailty, through institutions and practices that compensate for psychological limitations.
Example: "She studied the psychology of science after her paradigm-challenging paper was rejected repeatedly. She realized it wasn't about the quality of her work; it was about cognitive biases (reviewers preferred familiar ideas), social dynamics (she wasn't part of the inner circle), and career incentives (no one wanted to risk being wrong). The science was sound; the psychology was the obstacle."
by Dumu The Void February 16, 2026
Get the Psychology of Science mug.