Review of General Psychology Copyright 2004 by the Educational Publishing Foundation

2004, Vol. 8, No. 1, 59 – 67 1089-2680/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.8.1.59

Psychology’s Status as a Scientific Discipline: Its Empirical

Placement Within an Implicit Hierarchy of the Sciences
Dean Keith Simonton
University of California, Davis

Psychology’s standing within a hypothesized hierarchy of the sciences was assessed in

a 2-part analysis. First, an internally consistent composite measure was constructed
from 7 primary indicators of scientific status (theories-to-laws ratio, consultation rate,
obsolescence rate, graph prominence, early impact rate, peer evaluation consensus, and
citation concentration). Second, this composite measure was validated through 5
secondary indicators (lecture disfluency, citation immediacy, anticipation frequency,
age at receipt of Nobel Prize, and rated disciplinary hardness). Analyses showed that
the measures reflected a single dimension on which 5 disciplines could be reliably
ranked in the following order: physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and sociology.
Significantly, psychology placed much closer to biology than to sociology, forming a
pair of life sciences clearly separated from the other sciences.

From time to time psychologists attempt to
take stock of how the discipline of psychology
rates as a bona fide science. Sometimes this
self-evaluation takes the form of a qualitative
survey of its theoretical concepts and empirical
achievements. A case in point is Koch’s (1959 –
1963) monumental Psychology: A Study of a
Science. On other occasions the self-assessment
assumes a more quantitative form. For instance,
Rosenthal (1990) used the binomial effect size
display to address the question “How are we
doing in soft psychology?” and Hedges (1987)
applied meta-analytic techniques to respond to
the similar query “How hard is hard science,
how soft is soft science?” In a different vein are
various quantitative investigations that attempt
to assess the extent to which psychology’s his-
torical development follows a pattern similar to
that outlined in Kuhn’s (1970) classic account
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Friman,
Allen, Kerwin, & Larzelere, 1993; Robins, Gos-
ling, & Craik, 1999; see also Thagard, 1992). In
this latter group of inquiries can also be placed
those studies that attempt to determine whether
I thank Laurence D. Smith for bringing to my attention
additional criteria for ranking scientific disciplines and for
providing me with some unpublished data.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Dean Keith Simonton, Department of Psychol-
ogy, One Shields Avenue, University of California, Davis,
CA 95616-8686. E-mail: dksimonton@ucdavis.edu
59
psychology displays the kind of disciplinary
consensus and conceptual precision expected of
highly paradigmatic fields (Schachter, Christen-
feld, Ravina, & Bilous, 1991; Suls & Fletcher,
1983).
These diverse self-appraisals might be sub-
sumed under a tradition dating back to Auguste
Comte (1842/1855), the French positivist phi-
losopher who argued that the sciences could be
arrayed into a hierarchy. Comte’s own hierar-
chy was based on the extent to which each
discipline’s empirical findings were abstract,
simple, and independent of the findings of other
disciplines. Using these three criteria, he placed
the principal sciences of his day in the following
order: astronomy, physics, chemistry, and phys-
iology. Of course, psychology was not yet an
established science in the early 19th century.
Even so, it is clear from Comte’s criteria that it
would rank after physiology, especially insofar
as early psychology emerged out of physiology.
Indeed, Wilhelm Wundt, the “father of psychol-
ogy,” originally distinguished the new disci-
pline from philosophical psychology by label-
ing it physiological psychology.
Although Comte’s disciplinary rankings were
more logical than empirical, Cole (1983) at-
tempted to provide a scientific test of the hy-
pothesized hierarchy. To do so, he developed a
new set of criteria that reflected modern devel-
opments in the sociology of science as well as
Kuhn’s (1970) distinction between paradig-
matic and nonparadigmatic sciences. The crite-
60 SIMONTON
ria concerned the extent to which a discipline
(a) has well-developed or highly “codified” the-
ories; (b) quantifies its ideas in a precise, math-
ematical language; (c) exhibits high levels of
consensus among its practitioners with respect
to theory, methodology, and substantive ques-
tions; (d) displays high rates of obsolescence in
which recent work quickly replaces old work;
and (e) accumulates knowledge at a very rapid
pace. Unable to provide quantitative measures
of all of these criteria, Cole confined his anal-
ysis to just two criteria, namely magnitude of
consensus and the speed with which a discipline
incorporates original results. On the basis of this
more limited analysis, Cole concluded that
“there are no systematic differences between the
sciences at the top and at the bottom of the
hierarchy in either cognitive consensus or the
rate at which new ideas are incorporated”
(1983, p. 111).
Nonetheless, the results of a more recent in-
vestigation conducted by Simonton (2002) cast
doubt on this conclusion. Simonton’s inquiry
departed from Cole’s (1983) study in two sig-
nificant ways. First, Cole’s measures were com-
bined with additional indicators that represented
omitted criteria that had a reasonable associa-
tion with a discipline’s scientific status, namely
the theories-to-laws ratio (Roeckelein, 1997)
and rate of peer consultation (Suls & Fletcher,
1983). Second, Simonton determined the degree
of agreement among the several measures using
a correlational analysis, something that Cole
failed to do. Simonton demonstrated that the
diverse criteria all exhibited a substantial
amount of agreement on the relative standing of
the four disciplines examined. Just as signifi-
cant, this summary indicator ranked the four
disciplines in a manner completely consistent
with the hypothesized hierarchy. Specifically,
physics was at the apex, followed by chemistry
and then psychology, with sociology at the
bottom.
In this article, I wish to replicate and extend
my earlier (Simonton, 2002) results in two di-
rections. First, I incorporated additional mea-
sures that purport to gauge a science’s scientific
status, namely indicators of knowledge obsoles-
cence rate (McDowell, 1982) and graphic rep-
resentation (Cleveland, 1984; Smith, Best,
Stubbs, Johnston, & Archibald, 2000). The
former is a standard listed but unmeasured by
Cole (1983), whereas the latter represents a
criterion based on empirical analyses of how
scientific disciplines differ in their presentation
of empirical findings (Cleveland, 1984; Smith,
Best, Stubbs, Archibald, & Roberson-Nay, in
press). Second, I investigated disciplines be-
yond physics, chemistry, psychology, and soci-
ology insofar as it was permitted by the mea-
sures. This greater inclusiveness allowed deter-
mination of the scope of the hypothesized
hierarchy. In addition, by expanding the range
of indicators and disciplines, it should be pos-
sible to go beyond a mere ranking of the disci-
plines. Specifically, it should be possible to
obtain an interval score that reflects the distance
that separates each discipline along the under-
lying dimension of implicit scientific status. In
other words, the analysis can generate a scale
rather than a mere ranking.
Method
The unit of analysis in this investigation was the
discipline rather than the individual scientist or
scholar. Depending on the disciplinary criteria exam-
ined, the number of disciplines could range be-
tween 4 and 13. The measures of the attributes of
these several disciplines were divided into two cate-
gories: primary and secondary.
Primary Measures
The first set of indicators satisfies three specifica-
tions. First, the measures must have a strong theoret-
ical or empirical connection with the supposed sci-
entific status of a scientific discipline. After all, dis-
ciplines can differ on a host of attributes that may
have nothing directly to do with a discipline’s place
in the hypothesized hierarchy (e.g., number of under-
graduate majors or expected income of doctorates).
Hence, all of the indicators must have been explicitly
designed to assess the comparative scientific status of
various disciplines. Second, the indicators must in-
clude assessments on the four disciplines in Simon-
ton’s (2002) study, namely physics, chemistry, psy-
chology, and sociology. In addition to the obvious
fact that this quartet includes psychology, these two
natural sciences and two social sciences have re-
ceived the most attention in prior research (e.g., Cole,
1983). The primary measures may apply to other
disciplines as well, but these four could not have any
missing values. Third, all indicators must be objec-
tive rather than subjective. That is, they all entailed
straightforward counts or tabulations, thus avoiding
subjective judgments that might be biased by precon-
ceived notions regarding the relative merits of the
 PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
disciplines studied. The following seven indicators
met these three standards.
1. Theories-to-laws ratio: Roeckelein (1997, Ta-
ble 2, p. 137) assessed the number of theories
and the number of laws mentioned in introduc-
tory textbooks in physics, chemistry, psychol-
ogy, anthropology, and sociology. These counts
were then used to compute the ratio of theories
to laws; the higher the ratio, the more “soft” the
discipline. That is, exact sciences have many
more laws in proportion to mere theories. In a
sense, scientific status is a function of the ratio
of precise facts to vague conjectures.
2. Consultation rate: The next criterion was a
consultation measure based on Festinger’s so-
cial comparison theory (Suls & Fletcher, 1983,
Table 1, p. 578). According to this theory, when
people are uncertain about their beliefs or per-
formance, they are more likely to engage in
social comparison with similar others. The spe-
cific measure was the number of colleagues
recognized in the acknowledgment section ad-
justed for the number of authors. In other
words, the measure is independent of the num-
ber of collaborators. The higher this number,
the greater the apparent uncertainty about the
quality of one’s work. This score was available
for physics, chemistry, psychology, and
sociology.
3. Obsolescence rate: On the basis of the relative
frequency of citations to older publications,
McDowell (1982) determined the rate at which
knowledge becomes obsolete for the disciplines
of physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, psy-
chology, history, and English. The specific
measure used here was his calculation of the
expected publication cost of interrupting a ca-
reer for just 1 year (McDowell, 1982, Table 2,
p. 757). For example, if their career is inter-
rupted for a single year (e.g., by administrative
work or parental or health leave), the output of
physicists will be cut by about 17%, whereas
the productivity of psychologists will be cut by
about 10% (because physicists will have much
more “catching up on the literature” to do be-
fore they can resuscitate their careers). This
measure was not used in Simonton’s (2002)
investigation.
4. Graph prominence: Cleveland (1984) assessed
the extent to which graphs appear in articles
published in the professional journals, demon-
strating that graphs are more extensively used
in the “hard” disciplines (see also Smith et al.,
in press). The specific disciplines were physics,
61
chemistry, biology, medicine, psychology, eco-
nomics, and sociology. Although Cleveland
(1984) did not aggregate the findings for the
disciplines, this aggregation was carried out by
Smith et al. (2000). This graph measure is also
new to the current investigation (cf. Simonton,
2002).
5. Early impact rate: Cole’s (1983) Table 2 pro-
vided the “proportion of scientists under 35
whose work received more than the mean num-
ber of citations for their field” (p. 118). Those
fields that incorporate most quickly the work of
young scientists are assumed to rank higher in
the hierarchy, because such disciplines have a
stronger consensus about what can be regarded
a significant contribution to the field. The dis-
ciplines covered were mathematics, physics,
chemistry, geology, psychology, and sociology.
6. Peer evaluation consensus: Cole’s (1983) Ta-
ble 3 provided data indicating the “consensus
on evaluating scientists by field” (p. 120); 60
scientists per field were rated by colleagues in
the same discipline. The consensus was gauged
by the mean standard deviation of the ratings;
the lower the standard deviation, the higher the
consensus. The disciplines in this case were
physics, chemistry, biochemistry, psychology,
and sociology.1
7. Citation concentration: The “concentration of
citations to research articles” was presented in
Cole’s (1983, p. 122) Table 5. The citations
were to journals in mathematics, physics,
chemistry, biochemistry, geology, psychology,
and sociology. If the citations are all concen-
trated in a single article, the disciplinary con-
sensus must be very high, scientists concurring
on what contributions deserve the status of “ci-
tation classics.” In contrast, if the citations are
more evenly distributed across articles, then the
consensus must be minimal. In the case of a
completely even distribution, the citations re-
ceived by articles would not differ from chance
expectations.
Because the seven variables just described were
measured on rather different scales, the raw scores
were standardized to z scores (M ⫽ 0, SD ⫽ 1). In
addition, those variables that were reverse indica-
tors—namely theories-to-laws ratio, consultation
1
Simonton’s (2002) inquiry also measured peer evalua-
tion consensus using the results in Cole’s (1983, p. 120)
study. However, that alternative measure was ignored here
because (a) it was redundant with the first and (b) it ap-
peared to be less reliable according to a reliability analysis.
62 SIMONTON
rate, and peer evaluation consensus—were inverted
by reversing the sign of the standardized scores.
Secondary Measures
The second set of measures all have one feature in
common: However many disciplines to which they
are applied, they have a missing value for at least one
of the disciplines included in Simonton’s (2002)
study. As a consequence, none of these measures
were used in the earlier investigation. In addition,
even though all are relevant to a discipline’s scientific
status, not all of them are completely objective. Nev-
ertheless, these secondary measures are useful for
validating the results obtained from the primary mea-
sures. There were five indicators in this group.
1. Lecture disfluency: Schachter et al. (1991) de-
termined the rate of filled pauses (“uh,” “er,”
and “um”) during classroom lectures in under-
graduate courses in mathematics, chemistry, bi-
ology, psychology, economics, sociology, po-
litical science, philosophy, art history, and En-
glish. The higher the number of pause words
per minute, the greater the degree of speech
disfluency, which presumably reflects the de-
gree to which a discipline is less formal, struc-
tured, and factual. This interpretation is bol-
stered by the fact that the same set of lecturers
did not differ in disfluency when speaking on a
common subject. Hence, it is not a matter of the
more inarticulate scientists being attracted to
the less rigorous disciplines.
2. Citation immediacy: Cole (1983, Table 8, p.
126) calculated the extent to which the refer-
ences in published articles were confined to
recent work. In other words, this calculation
gauged whether citations emphasize contempo-
rary research over classic studies. Scores on this
immediacy factor were available for physics,
chemistry, biochemistry, geology, and psychol-
ogy (but not sociology, and hence its omission
from the Simonton, 2002, inquiry).
3. Anticipation frequency: Hagstrom (1974, Ta-
ble 1, p. 3) reported the results of a survey
of 1,718 scientists asked to report whether their
work had been anticipated by other scientists.
The percentage of scientists who had this expe-
rience at least once during their career course
was gauged for mathematics, physics (combin-
ing theoretical and experimental), chemistry,
and biology (combining experimental and
other). The greater the frequency of anticipa-
tion, the higher the consensus on what are
deemed the important and unimportant prob-
lems in a discipline.
4. Age at receipt of Nobel Prize: Stephan and
Levin (1993, Table 1, p. 395) provided the
median age at which scientists received Nobel
Prizes in the fields of chemistry, physics, and
medicine (from 1901 to 1992). The information
provided at the official Nobel Prize Web site
(http://www.nobel.se) was used to obtain the
same statistic for the recipients of the econom-
ics prize (from 1969 to 2001). The logic behind
including this indicator is the same as the early
impact rate measure among the primary predic-
tors. The more codified or paradigmatic a dis-
cipline, the sooner it can recognize when a
scientist has made an exceptional contribution
to the field.
5. Rated disciplinary hardness: Smith et al.
(2000) had psychologists rate disciplines on the
degree to which they could be considered
“hard” versus “soft.” The respondents used a
10-point Likert scale, with 10 indicating the
highest degree of hardness. Seven disciplines
were so rated, namely physics, chemistry, biol-
ogy, medicine, psychology, economics, and so-
ciology. Smith et al. (2000) showed that this
subjective assessment correlated .97 with
Cleveland’s (1984) measure of graph use. In
addition, the investigators showed that the as-
sessment correlated .94 with an independent
measure of paradigm development in various
disciplines (Ashar & Shapiro, 1990). This mea-
sure, although subjective, was included to de-
termine whether the objective assessments con-
cur with more intuitive attitudes about the rel-
ative status of different scientific disciplines.
As before, the preceding measures were all stan-
dardized to a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1.
Moreover, lecture disfluency was inverted by multi-
plying by ⫺1. It should be noted that, unlike the case
of the primary indicators, there was sometimes little
overlap in the disciplines covered by these five indi-
cators. In fact, some measures had as few as two
disciplines in common, a figure too small to compute
meaningful correlations. Even so, these measures
will prove useful in validating the primary indicators.
Results
Generating the Composite Measure From
the Primary Indicators
The four disciplines of physics, chemistry,
psychology, and sociology were used to cali-
brate an analytical baseline for devising a more
comprehensive measure that would apply to a
wider range of disciplines. The first step was to
 PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
calculate the correlations among the seven mea-
sures for just these 4 sciences, the resulting
correlations ranging between .63 and .998.
These correlations were then subjected to a
principal components analysis.2 Only one com-
ponent had an eigenvalue exceeding unity, and
that lone component accounted for 86% of the
total variance. Moreover, the loadings on the
first component were uniformly high, ranging
from .86 to .99. The specific loadings were as
follows: theories-to-laws ratio, .99; consultation
rate, .99; graph prominence, .96; peer evalua-
tion consensus, .93; early impact rate, .88; cita-
tion concentration, .87; and obsolescence rate,
.86. As a consequence, the standardized scores
across all seven measures were averaged to
produce a linear composite. The internal con-
sistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) for this
composite was .96.
The next step was to extend this linear com-
posite to all disciplines that contained at least
one nonmissing value on the seven primary
indicators. This was accomplished by simply
averaging the standardized scores across all in-
dicators with nonmissing values for a given
discipline. This means that a discipline’s score
on the linear composite may represent anywhere
between one and seven scores. Of course, the
expected measurement error will be greater for
those disciplines that have more missing values.
The ratings based on a single component crite-
rion would be the least reliable. In any case, the
resulting composite measure was restandard-
ized to a zero mean and unit standard deviation.
Validating the Composite Measure Using
Secondary Indicators
As a means of validating the resulting com-
posite indicator, the scores on the secondary
measures were plotted as a function of scores on
the composite measure. The outcome is shown
in Figure 1, which also gives the lines of best
least squares fit. If no association existed, these
lines would be horizontal, whereas lines in-
clined by about 45° would represent perfect
positive relations. Clearly, a strong association
exists between the composite of the primary
indicators and each of the separate secondary
indicators. In particular, higher scores on the
composite are associated with lower lecture dis-
fluency, higher concentration of citations on
more recent literature, more frequent experi-
63
ences of anticipation, greater youthfulness of
Nobel Prize recipients, and higher rated disci-
plinary hardness.
The corresponding Pearson product–moment
correlation coefficients ranged between .60 and
.97, with a median of .88. Unfortunately, the
number of cases underlying each correlation
was often too small to permit statistical signif-
icance (however, p values were .0003 for the
subjective hardness rating and .0786 for the age
at receipt of Nobel Prize measure).3 Even so, it
was possible to consolidate the five secondary
indicators into a single composite in the same
manner as the primary composite. That is, a new
score was created for each discipline by aver-
aging across the indicators for which there were
nonmissing scores. This secondary composite
correlated .87 (n ⫽ 11, p ⫽ .0004) with the
primary composite, thereby confirming statisti-
cally what is so apparent graphically in Fig-
ure 1. The 12 primary and secondary indicators
reflect a coherent latent variable on which dis-
ciplines can be reliably differentiated.
Ranking Five Disciplines Using the
Composite Measure
Because 5 disciplines had nonmissing values
on at least three of the primary indicators, it was
possible to provide fairly reliable rankings for
this subset of the 13 studied. Figure 2 shows the
outcome. Physics, chemistry, biology, psychol-
ogy, and sociology are arrayed according to
standardized composite score and rank. The
composite scores for physics, chemistry, psy-
chology, and biology are based on all seven
2
Because the number of variables exceeds the number of
cases, it is impossible to extract more than three principal
components (i.e., the number of nonzero positive eigenval-
ues cannot exceed N ⫺ 1). Nonetheless, the results still
amply surpass what must be expected under a null (random)
model in which the eigenvalues for the first three compo-
nents would all be equal. If there were two underlying
dimensions rather than one, the first two components would
have roughly equal eigenvalues. Contrary to either of these
scenarios, the first eigenvalue is more than 8 times the size
of the second and 21 times the size of the third.
3
One can readily argue that inferential statistics are not
appropriate anyway. The disciplines examined in this study
cannot be considered a random sample from a larger pop-
ulation of domains, nor is there any larger population of
disciplines to which the results are to be generalized. Ac-
cordingly, the descriptive statistics have interpretative value
apart from any desire to make population inferences.
64 SIMONTON

Figure 1. Scatterplot showing the relation between a discipline’s score on the composite measure and indicators of a
discipline’s lecture disfluency, citation immediacy, anticipation frequency, age at receipt of Nobel Prize, and rated
disciplinary hardness. The composite measure is defined by the discipline’s theories-to-laws ratio, consultation rate,
obsolescence rate, graph prominence, early impact rate, peer evaluation consensus, and citation concentration. Regression
lines of least squares best fit are also shown.

primary indicators and thus have an internal
consistency reliability of .96. Because the stan-
dard error of measurement is equal to the square
root of 1 minus the reliability coefficient, the
error for these four disciplines is only 0.2, or
just one fifth of a standard deviation. The com-
posite score for biology, in contrast, was based
on only three indicators, with a reliability of .89.
Even so, the standard error of measurement is
still reasonably small, namely 0.3, or about a
third of a standard deviation. Consequently, the
ordinal placement of these 5 disciplines is rea-
sonably secure.
It is immediately apparent that the disciplines
are ordered in close conformity to the expected
hierarchy. In particular, the natural sciences
score higher than the social sciences. Psychol-
ogy itself falls almost exactly at the mean of the
distribution, a placement that betrays its loca-
tion at the junction of the natural and social
sciences. Yet, according to the composite
scores, psychology is situated closer to biology
than to sociology. Less than half of a standard
deviation separates the psychological from the
biological sciences, whereas nearly one stan-
dard deviation separates psychology from soci-
ology. Indeed, the biggest gap in the scores is
found between the latter two disciplines. Fur-
thermore, because a somewhat smaller gap also
separates biology from chemistry, it might be
more accurate to conclude that the disciplines
fall into three clusters: the physical sciences of
physics and chemistry at the top of the hierar-
chy, the life sciences of biology and psychology
in the middle, and the social science of sociol-
ogy at the bottom.4
4
Although the composite scores are based on fewer than
three criteria, it is worthwhile to point out that the human-
ities are placed far below sociology. For example, scholar-
ship in English is farther removed from sociology than
sociology is from psychology. Thus, it is apparent that the
criteria by which the sciences are here judged also distin-
guish the sciences from the nonsciences.
 PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
Figure 2. The disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology,
psychology, and sociology placed in a Comtean hierarchy of
the sciences. The horizontal axis indicates the rank, and the
vertical axis indicates the composite score on the seven
primary indicators (i.e., the discipline’s theories-to-laws
ratio, consultation rate, obsolescence rate, graph promi-
nence, early impact rate, peer evaluation consensus, and
citation concentration).
Discussion
Completely objective and previously pub-
lished measures were used to construct a com-
posite measure of a discipline’s scientific status.
This measure was defined by the field’s theo-
ries-to-laws ratio, consultation rate, graph
prominence, peer evaluation consensus, early
impact rate, citation concentration, and knowl-
edge obsolescence rate. Moreover, this measure
correlated with alternative indicators of a disci-
pline’s placement in the hypothesized hierar-
chy, namely lecture disfluency in undergraduate
courses, the degree to which citations are to
recent literature, the frequency that one’s work
is anticipated by others, age at receipt of Nobel
Prize, and subjectively rated disciplinary hard-
ness. Finally, the composite measure could
place five disciplines along a scale in a reliable
65
and predictable fashion, with psychology clus-
tering near biology at approximately the middle
of the hierarchy.
However, to offer a fair appraisal of the mer-
its of this composite assessment, it is necessary
to deal with three issues. First, although the
analysis treated all disciplines as if they were
homogeneous domains, it is manifest that each
field consists of subdisciplines that differ sub-
stantially in their scientific status. In psychol-
ogy, for example, there is a marked contrast
between those subdisciplines that lean toward
the natural sciences and those that lean toward
the human sciences (Coan, 1968; Kimble, 1984;
Simonton, 2000). Moreover, empirical evidence
demonstrates that these subdisciplines differ in
how they score on the criteria (e.g., Best, Smith,
& Stubbs, 2001; Cole, 1983; Smith et al., in
press). Indeed, these subdisciplinary contrasts
determine the odds that a psychologist will be
elected to the National Academy of Sciences
(Over, 1981). Even so, the placement seen in
Figure 2 can still be viewed as representing each
discipline’s “center of gravity.” Some subdisci-
plines may score higher and others lower, but
the overall composite score indicates the central
tendency of the field. In fact, this solution is
implicit in the construction of the measures,
some of which are derived from scores averaged
across numerous journals that represent the cen-
tral subdisciplines of each field (e.g., graph
prominence).
Second, disciplines are not static entities. In-
stead, disciplines change dynamically over
time. Sometimes these changes may be progres-
sive, as a discipline becomes increasingly more
scientific. Comte (1842/1855) argued for the
essential nature of scientific progress, and some
empirical studies have attempted to document
its occurrence, including within psychology
(e.g., Bruner & Allport, 1940; Roeckelein,
1996). Nevertheless, the hierarchical arrange-
ment shown in Figure 2 can still be considered
a fair “snapshot” of the comparative status of
various disciplines at a particular point in his-
torical time. Furthermore, the hierarchy of the
sciences may be transhistorically invariant ow-
ing to properties intrinsic to each discipline. For
example, those sciences that deal with highly
complex and concrete phenomena in the social
sciences may always be at a disadvantage vis-
à-vis the natural sciences, or psychology rela-
tive to biology. Moreover, as Comte himself
66 SIMONTON
argued, the scientific standing of some disci-
plines is inevitably tied to foundational disci-
plines, thus precluding any major changes in the
hierarchy.
Third and last, according to Cole (1983),
most scientific disciplines can be partitioned
into two disparate parts. On the one hand is the
disciplinary core that consists of “fully evalu-
ated and universally accepted ideas which serve
as the starting points for graduate education” (p.
111). On the other hand is the research frontier,
which includes “all research currently being
conducted” (p. 111) at the leading edge of the
discipline. It is conceivable that disciplines
might have very different statuses in the sup-
posed hierarchy depending on whether one ex-
amines the core or the frontier of each domain.
However, the present results imply that this
distinction would not seriously undermine the
rankings exhibited in Figure 2. After all, the
primary and secondary measures included items
gauging both disciplinary aspects. Thus, with
respect to the core, the theories-to-laws ratio
was based on introductory textbooks and lecture
disfluency was calculated from undergraduate
courses, whereas the frontier was represented
by such measures as early impact rate, obsoles-
cence rate, consultation rate, and citation con-
centration. Hence, those disciplines that have
more scientific cores tend to have more scien-
tific frontiers as well.
Although the rankings depicted in Figure 2
still enjoy a reasonable amount of credibility,
the composite measure on which they were
based cannot possibly be considered the last
word. The most obvious next step is to extend
the analysis to even more scientific disciplines.
In addition, it would be highly desirable to
increase the number of criteria by which a dis-
cipline’s status is assessed. Perhaps the most
critical of these additions would be an index of
the degree to which a domain has been subject
to mathematical analysis. Yet, even with this
addition it would be highly unlikely that psy-
chology would dramatically alter its current po-
sition in the resulting hierarchy. In particular, it
is most probable that psychology’s status re-
sides between the natural science of biology and
the social science of sociology, with a greater
proximity to the former. To some undetermined
degree, psychology’s position in the hierarchy
reflects the nature of the phenomena studied
rather than the methods used to study those
phenomena.
Nonetheless, even this substantive limitation
might be overcome to the extent that psychol-
ogy becomes more fully integrated with the
biological sciences. The three most obvious
routes by which this integration might be ac-
complished are the cognitive neurosciences, be-
havioral genetics, and evolutionary psychology.
Although there already exist movements in this
direction (e.g., Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby,
1992), there are also ample trends pushing the
field in the opposite direction, such as the pos-
itive psychology movement, which has closer
ties to humanistic psychology than to the natu-
ral sciences (e.g., Snyder & Lopez, 2002).
Hence, it is possible that in the future the dis-
cipline will simply continue to oscillate around
the position in Figure 2. In particular, psychol-
ogy may always find itself placed just below
biology, forming a pair of life sciences clearly
separated from the physical sciences, repre-
sented by physics and chemistry, and the social
sciences, represented by sociology.
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Received November 15, 2002
Accepted January 10, 2003 䡲