An empirical analysis of trends in psychology

The present research examined trends in the prominence of 4 widely recogniz ed schools in scientific psychology: psychoanalysis, behaviorism, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. The results, which replicated across 3 measu res of prominence, showed the following trends: (a) psychoanalytic research has been virtually ignored by mainstream scientific psychology over the pa st several decades; (b) behavioral psychology has declined in prominence an d gave way to the ascension of cognitive psychology during the 1970s; (c) c ognitive psychology has sustained a steady upward trajectory and continues to be the most prominent school; and (d) neuroscience has seen only a modes t increase in prominence in mainstream psychology, despite evidence for its conspicuous growth in general. The authors use these findings as a springb oard for discussing different views of scientific prominence and conclude t hat psychologists should evaluate trends in the field empirically, not intu itively.