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Thinking about our science
For those who haven’t kept up to date with the recent published papers, blog posts, and media reports on the state of psychological science and social psychology in particular, I strongly recommend Brent Roberts’ blog post: Roberts, B. W. (2012). Navel gazing on steroids in social and personality science. Brent briefly reviews the details of all the recent controversies and scandals, ranging from the publication of Bem’s ESP findings in JPSP, to the Stapel Debacle, to the Psych Science paper on false positives, to Francis’ recent overly ambitious (if that’s the word) response to the false positives concern. It’s a lot to get through, but in my mind this is the most large-scale, focused navel gazing that our field has seen in years–certainly in the 13 years I’ve been in it– and I think it’s worth spending some time to take advantage of the efforts at self-reflection made by the various thinkers and commentators highlighted by Brent. If nothing else, it provides a great overview about how our science works and how it should work.