Ian J. Davidson

Taking psychology itself as a historical-cultural process, I’m often researching how we have come to view ourselves in the specific ways we currently do, and how is this connected to questions of science, politics, economics, justice, popular culture, and meaning-making. I have broad interests in the cultural and disciplinary history of psychology, especially in topics like personality testing and traits, quantitative methods, “scientific” racism and colonialism, and the various ways our focus on work has affected us. I’m also always interested in learning and teaching the many theories of self, identity, and subjectivity found across the human sciences and the humanities.

Areas of Interests

History of Psychology
Self & Identity
Methodology

Research and Interests

Dr. Davidson is an expert on the history and meta-theory of psychology, especially focusing on personality and methodology. His research includes histories of personality types, like the “ambivert,” as well as broader disciplinary and cultural histories of personality traits and psychometrics. Additionally, he is interested in and teaches quantitative methods and research practices. Dr. Davidson is open to volunteer student RAs as well as running Independent Studies with students.

ORCID page: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4180-2865

Courses Taught

PSY 311 – Intermediate Statistics
PSY 319 – Research Designs and Intermediate Statistical Methods
PSY 405 – Special Topics in Psychology: History and Theory of Psychology
PSY 409 – Special Topics: Self, Identity, & Subjectivity
PSY 480/1 – Independent Study

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• Davidson, I. J. (2023). Building on racism: The Porteus Hall controversy at the University of Hawai‘i. American Psychologist, 78(8), 955–967
• Flake, J. K, Davidson, I. J., Wong, O., & Pek, J. (2022). Construct validity and the validity of replication studies: A systematic review. American Psychologist 77(4), 576-588. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001006
• Davidson, I. J. (2021). Reconsidering Paul Meehl’s disciplinary legacy. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(7), e12623. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12623
• Flake, J. K., Davidson, I. J., & Pek, J. (2020). Is methodological research moving into practice? The critical role of formal methodological training. In Teaching Statistics and Quantitative Methods in the 21st Century (pp. 70–86). Routledge.
• Davidson, I. J. (2018). The (ab)normal-social-personality catena: Exploring the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology during the inter-war years. History of Psychology, 21 (2), 151-171. doi: 10.1037/hop0000090.
• Davidson, I. J. (2018). The ouroboros of psychological methodology: The case of effect sizes (mechanical objectivity vs. expertise). Review of General Psychology 22(4), 469-476. doi: 10.1037/gpr0000154
• Green, C. D., Abbas, S., Belliveau, A., Beribisky, N., Davidson, I. J., DiGiovanni, J.,Heidari, C., Martin, S. M., Oosenbrug, E., & Wainewright, L. M. (2018). Statcheck in Canada: What proportion of CPA journal articles contain errors in the reporting of p-values? Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 59(3), 203.
• Davidson, I. J. (2017). The ambivert: A failed attempt at a normal personality. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 53(4), 313–331. doi: 10.1002/jhbs.21868
• Pettit, M., & Davidson, I. J. (2014). Can the history of psychology have an impact? Theory & Psychology, 24 (5), 709–716. doi: 10.1177/0959354314534005

Book Chapters and Book Reviews

• Flake, J. K, Davidson, I. J., & Pek, J. (2020). Is methods research moving into practice? The critical role of quantitative training. In J.L. Rodgers (Ed.), Teaching Statistics and Quantitative Methods into the 21^st century. Taylor & Francis.
• Davidson, I. J. (2020). [Book review of How we became our data: A genealogy of the informational person by C. Koopman]. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences.
• Davidson, I. J. (2019). [Book review of The personality brokers: The strange history of Myers-Briggs and the birth of personality testing by M. Emre]. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 55 (2), 164-166. doi: 10.1002/jhbs.21966
• Davidson, I. J. (2017). [Book review of Validating psychological constructs: Historical, philosophical, and practical dimensions by K. Slaney]. Psychometrika, 83 (1), 272-274. doi: 10.1007/s11336-017-9589-2

National and International Conferences

• Davidson, I.J. (2020, June). The libertarian personality: The politics of heredity in the Cold War history of trait psychology. Paper accepted for the planned 2020 Joint Meeting of the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences (ESHHS) and Cheiron: The International Society for the History of the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, USA.
• Green, C. D., Feinerer I., & Davidson I. J. (2020, November). Networking articles in the journal Philosophy of Science. In Computational HPS: Promises and Challenges of Algorithmic Textual Analyses. Symposium was planned for the 27^th Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Baltimore, MD, USA.
• Davidson, I.J. (2019, June). Neurotic introverts: Disciplining the psychoanalytic person. Paper presented at the 51^th Annual Meeting of Cheiron: The International Society for the History of the Behavioral and Social Sciences, MacEwan University, Edmonton, AB.
• Davidson, I. J (2018, October). A map to every person? What intraindividual methods mean for trait psychology. Presented at the Quantitative Methods (Psychology Department) Colloquium Series, York University, Toronto, ON.
• Davidson, I. J. & Flis, I. (2018, August). Paul Meehl, psychology’s in-house philosopher: Examining his influences and legacy. Presented at the 126^th American Psychological Association (APA) Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA, USA.
• Green, C. D., Adkins, M., Austerberry, E., Davidson, I. J., DiGiovanni, J., Lysenko, N., & Villani, L. K. (2018, July). Which statistical tests have which psychological subdisciplines been using for how long? Presented at the meeting of the ESHHS. University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
• Davidson, I.J. (2018, June). Self gets in the way: The endless decontamination project in psychological testing. Paper presented at the 50^th Annual Meeting of Cheiron, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA.
• Green, C. D., Adkins, M., Austerberry, E., Davidson, I. J., DiGiovanni, J., Lysenko, N., & Villani, L. K. (2018, June). How Fisher’s Dream Became Lakatoš’s Nightmare: An Historical Survey of Psychologists’ Use of (Mostly) Inferential Statistics. Presented at the 50^th Annual Meeting of Cheiron, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA.
• Flake, J. K., Pek J., Davidson, I. J., & Wong, O. (2018, May). The fundamental role of construct validation in original and replicated research. In J.K. Flake (Chair), E. Fried (Co-Chair), & Lilienfeld S. (Discussant), Measurement schmeasurement: How poor measurement practices threaten cumulative psychological science. Symposium presented at the 30^th annual Association for Psychological Science (APS) convention, San Francisco, CA, USA.
• Davidson, I. J. (2017, June). The science of each and every person: The enduring problem of intraindividual variance and structure in personality research. Presented at the annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), Toronto, ON.
• Green, C. D., Abbas, S., Beribisky, N., Davidson, I. J., DiGiovanni, J., Heidari, C., & Oosenbrug, E. (2017, June). Is the rate of inconsistency between common test statistics and p-values in Canadian psychology journals similar to that found in top American psychology journals? Presented at the annual convention of the CPA, Toronto, ON.
• Flake, J. K., Davidson, I. J., & Pek, J. (2017, March). Improving psychological science through teaching quantitative methodology. Presented at “Teaching Statistics and Quantitative Methods into the 21^st Century” Mini-Conference (Joint meeting of APA Division 5 and the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology), Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
• Davidson, I. J. (2016, June). The sparse life of the ambivert: Tracing the history of a nearly forgotten personality type. Presented at the Joint Meeting of the ESHHS and Cheiron, Univesitate Autónome de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
• Davidson, I. J. (2015, June) Guilty about our selves: How guilty pleasures accentuate the multiplicity of narrative identity. Presented at the 32^nd Annual Qualitative Analysis Conference, Brescia University College at Western University, London, ON.