Science exists in a cultural context. When the culture changes – and American culture has just a celebrated a rather massive change – the science is sure to follow. It’s a truism but it’s still true: our experiments don’t take place in a vacuum. Scientists are members of society, too.
Sometimes, these cultural influences are direct. When the Bush Administration stifled data on global warming, it was directly influencing (or attempting to influence) the scientific process. But such direct interactions are rare: most of the time the culture seeps in without anybody noticing. It doesn’t so much influence the answers we get, but it almost certainly drives the questions we ask.
Here’s an example I’ve been thinking about lately: did the the flaws of the Bush Administration influence the direction of psychology? Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that the last eight years have seen a resurgence of scientific interest in cognitive dissonance and the danger of certainty. There have been excellent books on the subject, such as Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, and On Being Certain, by Robert Burton, but there have also been some wonderful experiments. I certainly don’t mean to imply that all of these books and experiments are about the Bush Administration, or were motivated by some sort of liberal angst. Rather, it’s just the case that we had a president who, for better or worse, was unerringly certain, and so certainty was in the news. In a similar vein, I’d be willing to bet that the Lewinsky scandal let to a modest spike in research and books on the dangers of temptation and the lapses of self-control. (In fact, I’ve talked to a scientist who said one of the reasons she studies self-control is because she became fascinated by Bill Clinton: how could such a smart man be undone by a thong?)
But here’s my question: how will Obama’s even-tempered personality influence future psychological research? My hope is that we’ll see a lot of studies on the benefits of staying calm and maintaining an emotional equilibrium. After all, it’s time we get a president who’s an example of effective cognition, and not a case-study in how not to think.