ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Setting-up a New Science: Knowledge Transfer and Conflict at the First International Conferences of Psychotechnics (1920-1922)

• In Event: New Perspectives on the Circulation of Knowledge

English Abstract

Throughout the 19th century, scientists started to organize international conferences. As any other professional groups, they entertained an interest in cooperating across national borders. Historians such as Rasmussen (1990) have shown that scientific gatherings soon played a major organizing role, as face-to-face interaction is considered vital for the transfer of trusted knowledge. Therefore, the interactions within conferences are no longer viewed as backdrops but scientific practices “in their own right” (Bigg et al., 2023) and privileged settings for scientific exchange and the planification of political moves. This also holds for the psychotechnics conferences. In the early 1920s, psychotechnics (also called industrial psychology or “applied psychology”), was still in the state of inception which makes the case especially interesting, begging the question of how the transfer of knowledge works when a field was still in formation. Was there any “trusted knowledge” to build on? Moreover, psychotechnics was entangled with IQ testing, eugenics and scientific management, which means that its scientificity and moral integrity was being questioned (Mülberger, 2020). Last but not least, given the format of the conferences, we should even ask: was “knowledge transfer” actually the main function of these meetings? My analysis of the proceedings of 1920, 1921 and 1922 shows the professional and political goals of some leading figures who wanted to expand their area of influence beyond the national borders. Thus, psychotechnics conferences were certainly a place where power was claimed, exerted and challenged.
References
Bigg, C., Reinisch, J.; Somsen, G. & Widmalm, S. (2023). The art of gathering: histories of international scientific conferences, The British Journal for the History of Science, 56, 423-433
Gundlach, H. (1998). Applied Psychology (vols. 1, 2 and 3, containing a reprint of the proceedings). London: Routledge.
Mülberger, A. (2020). Biographies of a scientific subject. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Psychology. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.694
Rasmussen, A. (1990). Jalons pour une histoire des congrès internationaux au XIXe siècle: Régulation scientifique et propagande intellectuelle. Relations Internationales, 62, 115–133.

Author

• Annette Mulberger, University of Groningen