The interaction between computers and psychology is a crucial juncture for creativity and user-centered design in technology. It’s also where unintentional harms to people happen. That’s why we need psychologists to play a bigger role in tech development–particularly given that many technology companies change human behavior at scale and profit from behavioral changes, and generally embrace scientific innovation.
In the past data collection in psychology research was based on two fundamental methods: laboratory research and surveys. The former examines a specific aspect in a small controlled setting, while the latter assesses broader behavior using self-reporting questionnaires or (potentially) structured interviews. Both suffer from inherent limitations.
Computers, however, can store and analyze large amounts of information at a high speed, and in ways that traditional methods aren’t able to. This makes them powerful tools for psychologists and psychologists, opening up a new field of study. For example, a new field called Psycho(neuro)informatics is emerging that merges psychology and computer science to develop models of human brains and intelligence. This requires experts from a team of psychologists who have domain expertise, and computer scientists with the knowledge to design large-scale tracking systems and manage and analyze the data that results from it.
However, until recently, there was not much collaboration between these fields. For instance, Google directors have been more likely to be interested in computer and computational science (29 percent were interested in it) as opposed to psychology (less than 2percent). This is likely to have led to psychologists not being a majority in leadership at tech companies. The result is that technology products fail to take psychological principles into consideration.