another contributing factor is that in psychology (and possibly other fields), it's very hard to make a career doing rigorous, incremental science that results

another contributing factor is that in psychology (and possibly other fields), it's very hard to make a career doing rigorous, incremental science that results in confident outcomes because each step along the way, people just way "yeah, sounds about right". to make a career, you need to discovering quirky counterintuitive findings that can be turned into ted talks and 'one weird trick' clickbait. you become a big deal once you start providing fodder for the annoying "well, actually..." guy to drop on people at a dinner party/reddit comment section.