H-PCAACA Chapter Proposals for “Psychology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)”; November 15, 2015 Deadline
Discussion published by Douglas Vakoch on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 Type: Call for Publications Date: November 15, 2015 Subject Fields: Psychology, Social Sciences, Sociology, Linguistics, Communication
Chapter proposals are invited for an edited book titled Psychology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). To date, only a handful of psychologists have been involved in SETI, which uses radio telescopes to search for signals from advanced technologies circling distant stars. Yet recent scientific discoveries make the existence of life beyond Earth seem increasingly plausible. For example, we now know that almost all stars have planets, and liquid water flows today on the surface of Mars. Psychology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) will follow up the October 2015 special issue of The Psychologist, the monthly magazine of the British Psychological Society, which focused on the theme “Out of This World”
Interested authors should send a 400-word abstract, 200-word biography, and sample of a previously published chapter or article to Douglas Vakoch [email protected] by November 15, 2015. Proposers will be notified about whether their submissions are accepted for the book by December 15, 2015. For accepted proposals first drafts of full chapters (8,000 – 9,000 words) are due by April 1, 2016, and final versions are due June 1, 2016. Only previously unpublished papers will be considered.
Proposals representing all subfields of psychology are welcome. A sampling of relevant topics includes:
Surveys of attitudes and beliefs about extraterrestrial life, informed by social psychology.
Human pattern recognition and signal detection, with applications to SETI signal processing, informed by cognitive and experimental psychology
Citation: Douglas Vakoch. Chapter Proposals for “Psychology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)”; November 15, 2015 Deadline. H-PCAACA. 10-27-2015. https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/92530/chapter-proposals-%E2%80%9Cpsychology-and-search-extraterrestrial Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-PCAACA
Representing our humanity in interstellar messages, informed by personality psychology
Characteristics of organizations needed to exchange interstellar messages on timescales of centuries or millennia, informed by organizational psychology
Cross-cultural comparisons of people’s responses to the detection of extraterrestrial life, informed by international psychology
Challenges of creating intelligible interstellar messages, informed by cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics
Anticipating the conceptual worlds of extraterrestrial intelligence that relies on sensory modalities different from those emphasized by humans, informed by biological psychology and comparative psychology
Models of the evolution of extraterrestrial intelligence, informed by evolutionary psychology
Beliefs about extraterrestrial life that change across the lifespan, informed by developmental psychology
Security concerns about SETI, informed by military psychology
Understanding popular perceptions about the alien, informed by media psychology
Incorporating SETI and astrobiology in psychological courses, informed by teaching of psychology
Changing views of extraterrestrial life by psychologists, informed by history of psychology
Understanding the hopes and fears of making contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, informed by social and personality psychology
The above list is not meant to be limiting, but only to suggest the wide range of topics and subfields that are relevant for Psychology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Preference will be given to authors who have already earned a doctorate.
Citation: Douglas Vakoch. Chapter Proposals for “Psychology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)”; November 15, 2015 Deadline. H-PCAACA. 10-27-2015. https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/92530/chapter-proposals-%E2%80%9Cpsychology-and-search-extraterrestrial Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-PCAACA
The editor of Psychology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Douglas Vakoch, is Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute and Professor of Clinical Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. His work in SETI was featured in the October 2015 issue of the American Psychological Association’sMonitor on Psychology
Given that we have no examples of extraterrestrial life to deal with, and no empirical proof that such life even exists, there are significant methodological constraints on applying insights from psychology to SETI and astrobiology. Chapters that highlight these constraints are especially welcome.
Contact Info:
Douglas Vakoch, Ph.D.
Director of Interstellar Message Composition, SETI Institute
Professor of Clinical Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies
Contact Email: [email protected]
Citation: Douglas Vakoch. Chapter Proposals for “Psychology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)”; November 15, 2015 Deadline. H-PCAACA. 10-27-2015. https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/92530/chapter-proposals-%E2%80%9Cpsychology-and-search-extraterrestrial Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3