Thanks much, Mike...that's helpful. I was just wondering if there was a simple way to do it on an author by author, rather than article by article, basis, but your approach may be the best...or as far back as it goes, anyway. I am definitely more interested in researchers who've had a major intellectual impact on the field - I realize that citation searches are a fallible indicator of this construct (assuming that it's a coherent one), but they're still a helpful guide. The Top 100 most impactful psychologists of the 20th century, provided in a Review of General Psychology article a few years ago, might be a rough and ready starting point.
Haven't really thought about how far I want to go back. To be frank, I'd dubious that university administrators will care much about any of this given that the bottom line ($$) is clear. Thanks again...Scott P.S. Pretty sure the funding for Meehl's taxometric work on schizotypy came from Golden, but I'll find out... On a related note, Meehl and David Lykken (my Ph.D. advisor) were the only people I've ever known who actually returned a federal grant. Back in the 60s, I believe, they applied for a gran (NSF, I think) t to look at somatotyping and personality, and received it. But after getting the grant, they started looking into the literature even more deeply and decided that they weren't sure they agreed with their hypotheses after all. So they returned the money. I can only imagine what a university or college Dean would say about that today. ________________________________________ From: Mike Palij [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2013 9:59 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: re: [tips] famous psychologists and federal grants On Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:57:19 -0800, Scott O Lilienfeld wrote: >Hi TIPSters...happy New Year. [snip] >Here's what has moved me to write. A number of psychology departments >in R1 institutions, including a major one in the Southeast (not Emory, >although >we may be following suit soon, I predict) are in the process of revising >their >tenure and promotion documents to demand that large-scale federal grant >funding should be a strong expectation, if not an outright requirement, for >tenure (and almost certainly, promotion to Full Professor). I have serious >reservations about this proposal for a host of reasons, In the late 1980s, early 1990s, I had a colleague who was finishing up a post doc and was looking for his first academic position. He applied to one of those colleges in the Cambridge, MA area and in his interview with the dean was told up front that it was expected that, if hired, it was expected that he would be bring in around three times his yearly salary in grant money and would continue to do so while there. He had a good "intellectual parentage" but was unsure if he handle the pressure to accomplish this AND get tenure. Some people thrive under such situations, some people go off and teach. ;-) Whether institutions want to attract such people (i.e., skilled grant getters) may have less to do with the degree that they are "influential" than with the amount of indirect costs that they bring in. When psychologists can do something that can be patented, then such grant grubbing will become less important. Being able to attract venture capitalists to invest in your research might be more important. 1/2 ;-) [snip] >But I'm wondering about more "recent" psychologists whom we would all agree >are >extremely impactful. Do you mean "influential" when you say "impactful"? And are you referring to a "popularity contest" or "name recognition" (in which case "Dr. Phil" wins) or do you mean citation counts of journal articles? And how "recent" is "recent"? last 20 years? Last 40 years (i.e., since 1970)? Ask when did universities start to pressure faculty to (a) have a productive research program and (b) get grant money for such programs? Off the top of my head, I'd say this started in the 1950s when the Dept of Defense and NIH started to invest in science (pre- and post-sputnik). So, a particular cut-off date would be useful. >Here is my naïve question: Is there some easy (or if not, >complicated) way of finding out whether a given psychologist ever received >federal funding? Yes. Read the Author Note, usually on the first page of the published article. For example, consider George Miller's "Magical Number Seven" paper which, according to PsycInfo has 2464 citations while Web of Science has 6,258 hits. His author note contains: >Preparation of the paper was supported by >the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory under >Contract NSori-76 between Harvard University >and the Office of Naval Research, U. S. >Navy (Project NR142-201, Report PNR-174). During the 1950s the Office of Naval Research and other parts of the Dept of Defense supported research in experimental psychology and artificial intelligence and it is not unusual to see ONR acknowledged as a source of funding. NOTE: If you use PsycInfo, you will see that there is a field term "Grant/Sponsorship". If you use, say, "National Science Foundation" as a search term with "Grant/Sponsorship" in the APA PsycNET (not the ordinary PsycInfo) you will get 28,727 hits and in the listing for the article you see all of the funding sources for the research being reported. For example, search for: Assessing selective sustained attention in 3- to 5-year-old children: Evidence from a new paradigm. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.07.006 By Fisher, Anna; Thiessen, Erik; Godwin, Karrie; Kloos, Heidi; Dickerson, John Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Vol 114(2), Feb 2013, 275-294. The "Full Record Display" contains the following: Grant/Sponsorship Sponsor: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, US Recipient: No recipient indicated Grant Number: 1RO3HD060086-01A1 Sponsor: US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, US Recipient: Fisher, Anna Grant Number: R305A110444 Sponsor: National Science Foundation, US Recipient: Kloos, Heidi Grant Number: DRL 723638 However, it is unclear how far back such info is available. The Miller "Magic Number Seven" paper does not have a "Grant/Sponsorship" listing. [snip] >So, for example, is there some way of finding out (short of reading >detailed >biographies) whether Skinner, Tolman, Allport, Festinger, Asch, Schachter, >Neisser, Rock, J.J. Gibson, Loftus, Tversky, or George Miller (I'm just >throwing out some quasi-random names of people we'd all agree are extremely >influential and creative - not saying we'd all agree with everything they >wrote...) received federal grant funding for their research (I believe that >Skinner received some funding from the defense department for applications >of >his work but I'm not sure whether that should count) and if so, how much? >(as >an aside, the smartest psychologist I've ever known, Paul Meehl, received >virtually no grant funding over the course of his career). See: Golden, R. R., & Meehl, P. E. (1979). Detection of the schizoid taxon with MMPI indicators. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 88(3), 217. The Author Note contains the following: >This research was supported in part by National >Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 24224 and >grants from the Psychiatry Research Unit, the >Scottish Rite Schizophrenia Research Program, and >the University of Minnesota Computer Center. It is unclear whether the grant funding is to Golden or Meehl. However, it should be noted that Meehl does not list any grant awards on the webpage that claims to have his vita; see: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~pemeehl/cv.htm I think that Albert Ellis is a better example but then again Ellis wasn't much of an academic. So, to summarize: (1) Define a time frame that will be relevant to current concerns (do you really think that a college administration will be interested in the influence of a psychology from before, say, 1970?). (2) Make a list of the researchers that you think are "influential" psychologists in the time frame. (3) All grant funded research tend to acknowledge the source of funding (especially if they want to receive future funding). The Author Note should provide this in most psychology journals. Use your list of researchers to search PsycInfo and other sources (e.g., Medline) articles that contain funding sources associated with a published article. You could search for a particular author and funding source (e.g., NIH, PHS, etc.) and if you get a hit, check out the article for mention of the specific grant. (4) It sucks that universities are now going to require grant procurement as a criterion in determining tenure and promotion but is it really an intellectual requirement or increasing revenue sources? Teaching stopped being important long ago. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13509.d0999cebc8f4ed4eb54d5317367e9b2f&n=T&l=tips&o=22657 or send a blank email to leave-22657-13509.d0999cebc8f4ed4eb54d5317367e9...@fsulist.frostburg.edu ________________________________ This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. 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