Psychology

We’ve heard so much about the problems of psychology as a discipline in science. And as our own Jack Cole points out, psychologists may simply be more inclined to self-report. But a reader sent this one in from Tom Farsides and Paul Sparks at Britain’s Psychologist, and it merits a mention anyway: Opinion: Buried in bullshit … There is a worrying amount of outright fraud in psychology, even if it may be no more common than in other disciplines. Consider the roll call of those who have in recent years had high-status peer-reviewed papers retracted because of confirmed or suspected fraud: Marc Hauser, Jens Förster, Dirk Smeesters, Karen Ruggiero, Lawrence Sanna, Michael LaCour and, a long way in front with Read More ›

Transgenderism is when a person considers themselves to internally be the opposite sex of their physical body. They mentally “self-identify” in contradiction to the physical fact of their body sex. Transgender law advocates insist that self-identified “transgenders” be given legal right to have unfettered access to all public facilities currently reserved for one sex or the other (male and female restrooms, lockers, showers, women’s shelters, etc.) Obama has recently decreed that all schools that do not fully adopt transgender protections and policies will face the revocation of federal funding. Usually, when a person believes they are something in contradiction to the physical facts (such as believing one is Napoleon, or believing one is a horse), we call that view delusional, Read More ›

But thrive better separately, says philosopher of science Eric Hochstein. From Stud Hist Philos Sci: Abstract There is a long-standing debate in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of science regarding how best to interpret the relationship between neuroscience and psychology. It has traditionally been argued that either the two domains will evolve and change over time until they converge on a single unified account of human behaviour, or else that they will continue to work in isolation given that they identify properties and states that exist autonomously from one another (due to the multiple-realizability of psychological states). In this paper, I argue that progress in psychology and neuroscience is contingent on the fact that both of these positions are false. Read More ›

From Nathaniel Scharping here: The words and body language we use during social interactions belong to a set of mutually understood categories. When people deviate from this set of normative behaviors, we sense that something is off. And if something isn’t right, we don’t feel comfortable. More. That makes sense. Actual human interactions are much more complex than pop psychology. This is something to keep in mind: “I think that none of the behaviors described as creepy in our study were actually tied to danger,” McAndrew wrote. … McAndrew also asked participants whether they thought creepy people knew they were, well, creeps. The response was overwhelmingly “no,” indicating that no one thinks people are willingly trying to be creepy. Instead creepiness Read More ›

In the comments box at Miller’s Mendacity, Barry Arrington asks It is getting to the point that refuting the nonsense is almost beside the point. No one believes it, least of all those who say they do. As you’ve been saying for some time now, the really interesting story here is the psychological story. Why do people profess belief in the obviously false? Okay: Why do people profess belief in the obviously false? A couple notes: – The belief that randomness produces information (central to Darwinism) is obviously false. It’s never been demonstrated because it can’t be. It is assumed. It is assumed for the same reasons as the existence of a multiverse or a naturalist explanation for consciousness are assumed. Read More ›

Here is the second preview session for the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism 2016 Online Conference. The actual conference will be held online on April 16th.

From Daily Caller: The research concludes that when people purchase an electric car or install rooftop solar, that decision is often heavily motivated by a desire to appear trendy and fashionable to their peers, which researchers dub as “conspicuous conservation.” Economists previously calculated that car dealerships and manufacturers can charge an extra $7,000 for a Prius, a hybrid car, because of social status bonuses. That’s quite a bit considering the hybrid car starts at $24,200. “Every era produces hucksters trying to sell snake oil,” Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute who did not take part in the study, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “But the particular type of flimflam Read More ›

From Neuroskeptic at Discover: In a long and interesting article over at Edge, social neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman discusses (amongst other things) the ‘replication crisis’ in his field. … Lieberman wants replictors to be chosen from among those who have done successful work in that area previously — because if they haven’t shown that they can successfully get other priming effects, or other embodied cognition effects, how do I know that they can do this? Neuroskeptic responds, … there’s something odd about the idea that ones qualifications should include a track record in finding positive results in the field in question. That seems to be putting the cart before the horse. I agree that replicators should have the necessary technical skills, Read More ›

From Gizmodo: The findings came from a new study out of the University of Michigan. Researchers gathered 83 people and had them read emails that either contained typos (“mkae” or “abuot”), grammar errors (to/too, it’s/its or your/you’re), or no spelling mistakes at all. At the end, the participants, who had also been asked to give information about themselves, scored the writers on “perceived intelligence, friendliness, and other attributes.” … Less agreeable people were more likely to notice grammar errors, which the researchers mused was because these types “are less tolerant of deviations from convention.” More. (language warning) U Michigan media release. Here’s the abstract. Open access Yes, that was your science dollar whistling past. 😉 Follow UD News at Twitter!

Should psychologists sue for mental abuse? Lord knows, social sciences are troubled and easy to mock. After all, we don’t know if a physics prof is describing hadrons accurately. But we sense we might very well know more than the psych prof does about the dynamics driving our workplace. Especially if it turns out that he is one of a minority percentage of the population who holds to identified political views and helps suppress challenges from within the profession. Sure, they can get away with that if taxpayers are forced to fund them, but no one can be forced to take it seriously. So we read, for example, at Vox, In a recent blog post titled “I was wrong,” he Read More ›

According to yet another experimental manipulation. From ScienceDaily: “Challenging a person’s belief in free will did not seem to provide them with a conscious justification for uncooperative behavior,” Protzko said. “If it did, we should have observed fewer contributions when people were given adequate time to think about their decision on the amount to contribute. “It’s very damaging to hear that we don’t have free will,” said Protzko. “Discounting free will changes the way we see things. Yet given time, we recover and go about our lives as though nothing were different.” More. Paper. (paywall) At least in their game simulation. See also: How can we believe in naturalism if we have no choice? and “I will ” means something Read More ›

From Slate: early 20 years ago, psychologists Roy Baumeister and Dianne Tice, a married couple at Case Western Reserve University, devised a foundational experiment on self-control. “Chocolate chip cookies were baked in the room in a small oven,” they wrote in a paper that has been cited more than 3,000 times. “As a result, the laboratory was filled with the delicious aroma of fresh chocolate and baking.” … Baumeister and Tice timed the students in the puzzle task, to see how long it took them to give up. They found that the ones who’d eaten chocolate chip cookies kept working on the puzzle for 19 minutes, on average—about as long as people in a control condition who hadn’t snacked at Read More ›

From Ed Yong at the Atlantic: Psychology’s Replication Crisis Can’t Be Wished Away Yes, when that “hey, we’re saved” story whistled past the News desk here, casting doubt on serious problems in social science, we held off. There was something troubling about the way the findings were phrased: “Researchers overturn landmark study on the replicability of psychological science” C’mon. It’s widely recognized that there are problems in social science, chiefly due to the monochromatic bias of the researchers. That makes them an easy mark for any flimflam that flies within their mass comfort zone. It’s all the worse if they imagine that won’t happen because they are a “science.” Anyway, Ed Yong: Last August, I wrote about a large initiative called Read More ›

From stalwart of science New York Mag: But scientists are coming to realize that this might not be quite right. A pair of new studies challenge many of the popular assumptions about the psychological effects of wintertime, suggesting that we should look at the season in a new, brighter light. The weather might be gray and chilly, but the latest science says we humans are better at dealing with this than we usually give ourselves credit for, both in terms of our mood and the basic functioning of our brains. The first study is a massive investigation published recently in Clinical Psychological Science involving 34,294 U.S. adults. It casts doubt on the very notion that depression symptoms are worse in Read More ›

Sound of fiftieth shoe dropping. From “skeptic” Shermer Scientific American: Although there are many proximate causes, there is but one ultimate cause—lack of political diversity to provide checks on protests going too far. … The problem is most relevant to the study of areas “related to the political concerns of the Left—areas such as race, gender, stereotyping, environmentalism, power, and inequality.” The very things these students are protesting. How does this political asymmetry corrupt social science? It begins with what subjects are studied and the descriptive language employed. Consider a 2003 paper by social psychologist John Jost, now at New York University, and his colleagues, entitled “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition.” Conservatives are described as having “uncertainty avoidance,” “needs Read More ›