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I think you might confusing psychiatry/clinical psychology and behavioral psychology, which is understandable. Psychiatry and clinical psychology (including co

I think you might confusing psychiatry/clinical psychology and behavioral psychology, which is understandable. Psychiatry and clinical psychology (including cognitive behavioral therapy) is indeed the most evidence based part of psychology, understandably so since it deals with our health care system, and the correct treatment does save lives. Personality psychology however doesn’t deal with psychological disorders focusing instead on the science of explaining behavior. The quality of the science in question is about finding a good model is, and evidence in question is not how effective a certain treatment is, but how well it justifies and backs up the model. I see this sentiment a lot here on HN that psychology is poor science, I disagree with that. Yes if you include psychoanalysis you will see a lot of bad science, however psychoanalysis has been on the fringe for almost a century at this point, and is not at all representative of the field as it is currently practiced. As an example take the subfield neuroscience, which looks at brain trauma from various patients and is able to predict with some accuracy what kind of behavioral change the patient will experience (a good model), and then uses that to focus on best paths for rehabilitation (a good justification for that model). Personality psychology has not been as successful in creating a good model, nor in finding ways to justify their model. Personality psychology is at best a poor and limited predictor of behavior, with very limited justification for said models. Nothing about feelings here really, just evidence for models of behavior.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
I hate to break it to you, but psychology, and most of medicine for that matter, is based on very suspect science. Including the clinical practice and the more wishy-washy parts. Almost every study in medicine as a whole and psychology in specific doesn't replicate. A lot of study has gone into realizing that the familiarity between the therapist and patient is the main determining factor in the effectiveness of psychotherapy. From that perspective, even the most suspect, crappy, Jungean or Freudian junk can work if the therapist-patient partnership makes it work. Similarly, the current "scientific" hotness (CBT, DBT) can fail based on that relationship alone.
- runarberg 4y ago
  These are bold claims that goes against a large body of work published in many scientific journals, unless of course you are talking historically, in which case I agree with you, but that has nothing to do with modern psychology and validity of personality psychology in particular. What you are describing here is the placebo effect, and it has been studied extensively. Almost all forms of therapy and medicine has to pass a double blind study which controls for the placebo effect, to be considered an effective treatment. These are most of the time replicated effectively often time with published meta-analysis of dozens of replications. The studies that don’t replicate are called out during these meta-analyses. These “debunking” meta-analysis are rare, but do occur. If what you are describing is a reality, you would find many of these meta-analyses and there would be a pretty massive crisis in the field of medicine. Like I said, this is a bold claim that goes against the established literature, I think you’ll need quite a bit of evidence to convince me. I’m not disagreeing that bad science exists within psychology. Of course it does, psychometrics being one of these. But I would argue that it is becoming more and more irrelevant with a generational shift inside the field. I’m also gonna make a bold claim here and state that intelligence testing is has already become a fringe psychological theory, that is going into the history books, along psychoanalysis, as an example of bad science that went nowhere.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    I wish people would spend 5 seconds googling before running back here for you to provide sources when they don't like your claims. Get reading, starting with almost every source for this wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis Also, on therapist connection, this is the big one that made waves a few years ago: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31425144/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31425144/ The good news is that given the replication crisis, there's a not-terrible chance that it's wrong. However, the papers that cite this one will be a good review of the literature. Have fun! Also note that the psychological literature will not be advertising the flaws in the entire premise of the notion of "psychological literature" very much, so this stuff absolutely goes against the orthodoxy in the field. I will also add, before any stupid anti-vaxxers latch on to this, that some areas of medical science are very good at replicating, including the parts around drug and vaccine creation (which have a very high standard of proof). No area of "clinical" science does better than a coin flip, though.

pclmulqdq 4y ago

I hate to break it to you, but psychology, and most of medicine for that matter, is based on very suspect science. Including the clinical practice and the more wishy-washy parts. Almost every study in medicine as a whole and psychology in specific doesn't replicate. A lot of study has gone into realizing that the familiarity between the therapist and patient is the main determining factor in the effectiveness of psychotherapy. From that perspective, even the most suspect, crappy, Jungean or Freudian junk can work if the therapist-patient partnership makes it work. Similarly, the current "scientific" hotness (CBT, DBT) can fail based on that relationship alone.

runarberg 4y ago
These are bold claims that goes against a large body of work published in many scientific journals, unless of course you are talking historically, in which case I agree with you, but that has nothing to do with modern psychology and validity of personality psychology in particular. What you are describing here is the placebo effect, and it has been studied extensively. Almost all forms of therapy and medicine has to pass a double blind study which controls for the placebo effect, to be considered an effective treatment. These are most of the time replicated effectively often time with published meta-analysis of dozens of replications. The studies that don’t replicate are called out during these meta-analyses. These “debunking” meta-analysis are rare, but do occur. If what you are describing is a reality, you would find many of these meta-analyses and there would be a pretty massive crisis in the field of medicine. Like I said, this is a bold claim that goes against the established literature, I think you’ll need quite a bit of evidence to convince me. I’m not disagreeing that bad science exists within psychology. Of course it does, psychometrics being one of these. But I would argue that it is becoming more and more irrelevant with a generational shift inside the field. I’m also gonna make a bold claim here and state that intelligence testing is has already become a fringe psychological theory, that is going into the history books, along psychoanalysis, as an example of bad science that went nowhere.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  I wish people would spend 5 seconds googling before running back here for you to provide sources when they don't like your claims. Get reading, starting with almost every source for this wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis Also, on therapist connection, this is the big one that made waves a few years ago: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31425144/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31425144/ The good news is that given the replication crisis, there's a not-terrible chance that it's wrong. However, the papers that cite this one will be a good review of the literature. Have fun! Also note that the psychological literature will not be advertising the flaws in the entire premise of the notion of "psychological literature" very much, so this stuff absolutely goes against the orthodoxy in the field. I will also add, before any stupid anti-vaxxers latch on to this, that some areas of medical science are very good at replicating, including the parts around drug and vaccine creation (which have a very high standard of proof). No area of "clinical" science does better than a coin flip, though.