Work

The Laboratory of Experimental Psychology: Establishing a psychological community at a Brazilian university

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: This paper aims to introduce the laboratory of experimental psychology as a truth-spot, as well as to investigate the social networks formed at the laboratory, in the initial implementation of the psychology degree at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). In considering the principles that a laboratory can be designed as a generator of facts/truths and, at the same time, as a support structure for the formation of academic communities, we carried out interviews with five professors from UFMG. These interviews revealed the social supports provided by the laboratory for the psychology degree at UFMG. The interviews were interpreted by means of historical information relating to both the establishment of the psychology degree and to the discussions on the higher education in the national context at that time. We found that the establishment of the laboratory of experimental psychology played a central role in the formation of the university’s psychology department, in the establishment of a degree in that discipline, and in raising the status of psychology as a profession.

Source: Revista Interamericana de Psicología/Interamerican Journal of Psychology

DOI: 10.30849/rip/ijp.v46i1.188

Authors: Sérgio Dias Cirino, Rodrigo Lopes Miranda, Eustáquio José De Souza Júnior

Institution: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Language: English

Topic: Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology

Subfield: General Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais