Research on the psychology of science began in 1874, the field has seen a substantial expansion of activity in recent years.
[3] The specific field of psychology as a science first gained popularity mostly in the 1960s, with Abraham Maslow publishing an influential text on the subject (Maslow, 1966), but this popularity faded, only re-emerging in the 1980s (e.g., Simonton, 1988).
Narrowly defined, "science" refers to thought and behavior of scientists and technologists.
[4] The methods of psychology that are applied to the study of scientific thought and behavior include: psychohistorical, psychobiographical, observational, descriptive, correlational, and experimental techniques (e.g., Gholson et al., 1989; Giere, 1992; Kowlowski, 1996; Magnani et al., 1999; Carruthers et al., 2002; Feist, 2006; Proctor & Capaldi, 2012; Feist & Gorman, 2013).
The psychology of science includes research in many subfields of psychology, such as but not limited to neuroscientific, developmental, educational, cognitive, personality, social, and clinical (Feist, 2011).