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Minding Science: Constructivism and the Discourse of Inquiry

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Abstract

Cognitive Therapy and Research emerged as a journal during the cognitive revolution. The cognitive revolution was a major paradigm shift in psychology. My involvement in that revolution followed my earlier training in behaviorism. The strong emotional reactions of radical behaviorists to early cognitive inquiries contributed to my interest in how scientists do science and why belief systems are sometimes so resistant to change. Studies of science and scientists reflect these questions. This paper offers a broad-stroke sketch of psychology of science, with special emphasis on graduate school, academic politics and tenure, publication, passions and paradigms, and the current controversy popularly mislabeled the “science wars.” I conclude that the academy and science policies are in need of constructive reform, science studies are crucial to our future, and we would be wise to stop using war metaphors. Let us foster a developmental discourse of inquiry.

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Mahoney, M.J. Minding Science: Constructivism and the Discourse of Inquiry. Cognitive Therapy and Research 27, 105–123 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022594831661

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