Adjunct Associate Professor of Behavioral Science | University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Social psychology etc.
Along with many other psychologists, I’ve been closely following (and participating in) the ongoing discussion about finding ways to effectively improve the shortcomings in our field’s research methods. Given that the Stapel fraud case was an important spark to these discussions, I read Yudhijit Bhattacharjee’s article, The Mind of a Con Man, in this week’s New York Times Magazine with great interest.
Read MoreIn recent months social psychologists have focused an increasing amount of attention on the soundness of their scientific methods. Although the problems we face are troubling, I believe that the renewed attention they are getting is a very positive trend because a self-critical approach is essential to ensuring the continuing health of the discipline. If, as a scientific community, we were to ignore problems as they became apparent, then our entire endeavor would be undermined. The question, then, is not whether we need to be improving the state of our science, but how we can do so most effectively.
Read MoreAn update on Simonsohn's recently posted paper in which I discuss one of the techniques used to confirm Simonsohn's suspicions of fraud. The results of the analysis make it clear that the data was not generated by real subjects.
Read MoreUri Simonsohn's "secret" paper describing the analyses he used to detect fraud in the Dirk Smeesters and Larry Sanna cases has now been submitted for publication and is available on SSRN. Simonsohn explains the analyses he used to detect and confirm the fraud and calls on journals to make the publication of raw data their default policy.
Read MoreSome guy thinks psychology is not really a science. He doesn't know what he's talking about.
Read MoreIs social psychology in need of reform? I propose that despite high profile cases of fraud, we should be more focused on fixing the mistakes that honest researchers make all the time.
Read MorePart 2 of my two-part series on conceptual replication: how conceptual replication can prevent us from replicating our mistakes with a look back at the history of Cognitive Dissonance Theory.
Read MoreHere is the short commentary that I wrote about conceptual replication for the May issue of The Psychologist. It explains why conceptual replication is integral to social psychology research and why it can seem strange to people in the hard sciences.
Read More- The Guardian
July 24, 2014
P. Thagard and A.D Nussbaum (2014). Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 43-53.
- The New York Times
May 1st, 2015