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Science has been adopted as an object of study by various other disciplines, among them psychology. Approaches to the 'psychology of science' can be grouped as (1) works based principally on the study of the personal characteristics of scientists in terms of types of reasoning, personality, or special capacities such as creativity that differentiate them from non-scientists; & (2) those focused more on the cognitive aspects of science, such as philosophers, epistemologists, & cognitive psychologists or scientists sharing their interests. Areas of interest include processes of normalization in science, normative aspects in processes of publication, processes of social influence & social comparison, values & beliefs in science, belief systems, science & ideology, ethics in the production of scientific knowledge, organizational context of scientific research, & science-society relations. Prominent authors & their works in these & other areas are referenced.

Since its establishment in 2004, the German Data Forum (RatSWD), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Science and Research (BMBF), has been advising the federal government and the governments of the federal states (Länder) on issues relating to the expansion and improvement of the research infrastructure for the empirical social, behavioral, and economic sciences (SBE). In late 2010, the RatSWD addressed the question of how the quality of survey instruments in the social and economic sciences, and especially in social and economic survey research, could be controlled and assured. At a meeting on November 9, 2012, the RatSWD therefore decided to set up a 'Quality Assurance of Survey Instruments Working Group' under the leadership of Professor Beatrice Rammstedt. The establishment of the working group was prompted in particular by the desire to define quality standards in order to assure and optimize the quality of survey instruments. Hence, the working group made the formulation of these standards its primary objective. They are presented in this paper.

U.S. regulation of chemicals is in need of an overhaul, informed by European legislation and guided by new thinking about risk.

The American Law Institute's Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations contains a set of detailed reform proposals for the allocation of custodial responsibility for children among parents, including the approximation rule. This article examines two bodies of social science evidence that explicitly or implicitly were used to justify the approximation rule, attachment theory and research and research on the impact on children of shared parenting arrangements subsequent to divorce. These two bodies of evidence used to justify the approximation rule are reviewed and evaluated to provide an assessment of its social‐based rationales.

The publication provides a comprehensive compendium of the current state of Germany's research infrastructure in the social, economic, and behavioural sciences. In addition, the book presents detailed discussions of the current needs of empirical researchers in these fields and opportunities for future development. The book contains 68 advisory reports by more than 100 internationally recognized authors from a wide range of fields and recommendations by the German Data Forum (RatSWD) on how to improve the research infrastructure so as to create conditions ideal for making Germany's social, economic, and behavioral sciences more innovative and internationally competitive. The German Data Forum (RatSWD) has discussed the broad spectrum of issues covered by these advisory reports extensively, and has developed general recommendations on how to expand the research infrastructure to meet the needs of scholars in the social and economic sciences.