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I actually have an answer for this: Stop talking about "psychology" like it's a monolithic thing. Start by separating "hard" psychology (perception, attention

I actually have an answer for this: Stop talking about "psychology" like it's a monolithic thing. Start by separating "hard" psychology (perception, attention, psychophysics, etc) from social psychology. Papers about saccadic adaptation are, I suspect, much more reproducible than those about implicit association.

simonster 11y ago
The OSC Science paper separates cognitive and social psychology papers and journals, and cognitive psychology papers replicate at about twice the rate of social psychology papers. But still only a bit more than half of the cognitive papers replicate, so I think there are still deeper issues.
- hga 11y ago
  But still only a bit more than half of the cognitive papers replicate, so I think there are still deeper issues. That puts them in the general level of quality for all bio-medical research, so, yeah, deeper issues indeed, but I find it fascinating that this sub-group is so good.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    This because that sub-group is very, very close to medical research. The problem with social psychology, on the whole, is that it's highly politicized. This is especially true with regards to any study involving race, gender, or "identity" (in the sense of identity politics).
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
One thing I noticed is that the more focused the subset of psychology, the better the results. For example psychology that looks at a group of neurons and how they function is vastly better than psychology looking at how some early life event X leads to later problems in life.
- omginternets 11y ago
  I don't think this is actually true. There are plenty of high-level effects that are very robust and reproducible: attentional cueing, perceptual masking, inhibition of return, saccadic adaptation, hyperbolic discounting, etc. I think your hypothesis conflates a few notions, for instance hierarchical organization and study design. I think the relevant factor in your comparison is not the level of analysis, but the measure. "Early life event X" is likely to be measured by a survey, while studying neuronal populations is in the realm of electrophysiology.
- drumdance 11y ago
  Isn't that really neuroscience?
  - omginternets 11y ago
    When neuroscience involves predicting behavior and/or mental state, it usually falls under the umbrella of "cognitive neuroscience", which in turn is a way of saying "psychology that's not soft as all hell". The boundaries are fuzzy, and you'll find people with psych, medical, neuro, math, CS and philosophy degrees in experimental cogsci labs.

simonster 11y ago

The OSC Science paper separates cognitive and social psychology papers and journals, and cognitive psychology papers replicate at about twice the rate of social psychology papers. But still only a bit more than half of the cognitive papers replicate, so I think there are still deeper issues.

hga 11y ago
But still only a bit more than half of the cognitive papers replicate, so I think there are still deeper issues. That puts them in the general level of quality for all bio-medical research, so, yeah, deeper issues indeed, but I find it fascinating that this sub-group is so good.
- omginternets 11y ago
  This because that sub-group is very, very close to medical research. The problem with social psychology, on the whole, is that it's highly politicized. This is especially true with regards to any study involving race, gender, or "identity" (in the sense of identity politics).

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

One thing I noticed is that the more focused the subset of psychology, the better the results. For example psychology that looks at a group of neurons and how they function is vastly better than psychology looking at how some early life event X leads to later problems in life.

omginternets 11y ago
I don't think this is actually true. There are plenty of high-level effects that are very robust and reproducible: attentional cueing, perceptual masking, inhibition of return, saccadic adaptation, hyperbolic discounting, etc. I think your hypothesis conflates a few notions, for instance hierarchical organization and study design. I think the relevant factor in your comparison is not the level of analysis, but the measure. "Early life event X" is likely to be measured by a survey, while studying neuronal populations is in the realm of electrophysiology.
drumdance 11y ago
Isn't that really neuroscience?
- omginternets 11y ago
  When neuroscience involves predicting behavior and/or mental state, it usually falls under the umbrella of "cognitive neuroscience", which in turn is a way of saying "psychology that's not soft as all hell". The boundaries are fuzzy, and you'll find people with psych, medical, neuro, math, CS and philosophy degrees in experimental cogsci labs.