What has Shakespeare got to do with it?

Abstract

The effort to establish psychology as a bona fide science has been associated with a simplistic and incorrect picture of psychology as evolving from methodologies and practices in physics and “other sciences,” and being far removed and completely separate from the humanities and arts. Introductory psychology texts routinely present this view of psychology. However, the claim that the roots of experimental psychology are to be found in 19th-century physics and related sciences is misleading and has negative implications for all of psychology, including peace psychology. The roots of experimental psychology actually go back to the scientific revolution underway from the 15th and 16th centuries, and are to be found in early modern literature and specifically thought experiments, which provide imagined demonstrations or tests of particular hypotheses about human behavior, such as in Shakespeare’s plays. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)