Engaging public policy with psychological science.

Abstract

The recent explicit and abrupt rift between science and federal policymaking governance highlights the somewhat tenuous relationship between the 2. As a discipline, the question of engaging public policy asks when, how, and under what conditions. However, simply producing more science or informing policymakers about our science is insufficient and ineffective (John, 2017). This paper argues that psychological scientists interested in engaging with public policy would benefit from 3 broad understandings. First, we must understand policymaking as a complex system with multiple individual and organizational stakeholders. Second, we must consider the policymaking process as more than a simple linear or even circular process, and instead as a dynamic recursive process. Finally, we must know what is considered "research" and how research might or might not be used in that complex system process. Controversies over engagement, objectivity, and advocacy should not deter psychologists from engaging with the policy process.

Older South Africans’ Access to Service Delivery through Technology: A Process Overview

“…We drafted a policy brief to share the research findings, presented in Box 3.4. A policy brief aims to translate evidence-based knowledge useful to policy makers as non-researchers who operate in a number of multiple levels of locality and governing (Siegel et al, 2021). The knowledge presented should be clear to enable policy makers to determine what solution would work under what conditions while considering rights and responsibilities (Romich & Fentress, 2019).…”

Public psychology: Introduction to the special issue.

“…“Public psychology” lacks a consistent, finite definition (Chu et al, 2012). Scholars have used the term to emphasize the need to recruit and train psychologists who are mental health practitioners for public sector work (Chu et al, 2012), to describe psychology when applied to the development of public policy (Syme & Bishop, 1993; see also Siegel et al, 2021), and to refer to an outgrowth of community psychology generally concerned with applying psychology to public affairs (Imber et al, 1978). In the present article, we turn to the definition originally provided by Miller in a classic article in American Psychologist , in which public psychology is psychology applied to solving social problems (Miller, 1969).…”