Hypothetical Machines
The Science Fiction Dreams of Cold War Social Science
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3194239 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rebecca Lemov (Harvard University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 101 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 401-411 |
| Publication date | 2010-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/653107 |
| PMID | 20718281 |
| OpenAlex | W1538877250 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 13 |
The introspectometer was a "hypothetical machine" Robert K. Merton introduced in the course of a 1956 how-to manual describing an actual research technique, the focused interview. This technique, in turn, formed the basis of wartime morale research and consumer behavior studies as well as perhaps the most ubiquitous social science tool, the focus group. This essay explores a new perspective on Cold War social science made possible by comparing two kinds of apparatuses: one real, the other imaginary. Even as Merton explored the nightmare potential of such machines, he suggested that the clear aim of social science was to build them or their functional equivalent: recording machines to access a person's experiential stream of reality, with the ability to turn this stream into real-time data. In this way, the introspectometer marks and symbolizes a broader entry during the Cold War of science-fiction-style aspirations into methodological prescriptions and procedural manuals. This essay considers the growth of the genre of methodological visions and revisions, painstakingly argued and absorbed, but punctuated by sci-fi aims to transform "the human" and build newly penetrating machines. It also considers the place of the nearly real-, and the artificial "near-substitute" as part of an experimental urge that animated these sciences
Vision · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History of Science and Medicine
Social Psychology
The discipline that came in from the cold
Cybernetic rationality
Brainwashing's Avatar
The con man as model organism
The view from outer space
The Congress for Cultural Freedom, Minerva, and the Quest for Instituting “Science Studies” in the Age of Cold War
Robert K. Merton’s Approach to Teaching the Classics in Sociology
X-rays of inner worlds
Circuits of Amnesia
The American Soldier and Its Critics
The Behavioral Approach in Political Science
Patrons of the Revolution
Southwestern Studies of Culture and Personality
Organization and Pathology of Thought
Three Fragments From a Sociologist's Notebooks
The Hypothetical Situation
Science Studies and the History of Science
The Participant-Observer Technique in Small Communities
Cold war anthropology
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2025 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |