The Life Cycle of Psychological Ideas: Understanding Prominence and the Dynamics of Intellectual Change

This book focuses on what other volumes have only touched on, that is the factors that contribute to the rise of certain persons and ideas in the field of psychology. Bringing together noted experts in the field, it describes the process of intellectual reconstructions that determines how we view historical events, and why some ideas die only to be reborn again, as well as why new ideas can quickly topple traditional views. As such, it answers the following questions: what enables a body of work to withstand distortion, labelling, and stereotyping? Why do new revelations in the historical archive renew interest in "re-examining" particular ideas? Through what process does a theory become a school of thought, or a movement attracting adherents?