Psychology: The Land That Software Engineering Forgot

Abstract

Tremendous strides have been made by psychology, social psychology and behavior economics in the last few decades. Several experiments now prove that human beings are not as rational as we once thought they were and that multiple variable can critically influence human thoughts, emotions and behavior. However, Software Engineering as a filed has largely ignored these finds, in the sense that similar experiments to prove their impact on Software Engineering are lacking. This paper proposes that Software Engineering can go to a new level by adopting an experimental approach to identify psychological variables that can impact software productivity.