Forty years ago as an undergraduate, I participated in several psychological experiments as a test subject. I was incentivized to do this by being given credit in various Psychology courses. I was not a Psych major but very interested in the subject, particularly in Social Psychology. I found Social Psych especially fascinating because its findings seemed to so often be counterintuitive, at least to my sophomoric young mind. Up to that point, I had mistakenly believed that most people were primarily rational in their epistemological outlooks. Social Psychology was disabusing me of that naivety. Even at that time, it struck me that the participant pool from which data was derived was highly problematic. The majority of participants were Psychology majors. That alone was a delimiting demographic that didn’t seem to be calculated into the findings. As a non major but someone who had an inordinate amount of experience socializing with those seeking degrees in the field, anecdotally at least, it seemed that Psychology majors were a relatively unique cohort. The stereotype that Psych majors tend to pursue this course of study to unpack their own psychological demons was not without some foundation. From my perspective, it seemed that there was an inordinate amount of sophomoric self analysis going on among Psychology undergrads and that they tended to come to self serving conclusions. Unsurprisingly, they rarely concluded that their difficulties could be best attributed to any intellectual or moral failings on their parts. In fact, they weren’t big on personal agency, tended to pathologize everything and seemed to be a particularly amoral lot. Like all young determinists, they were inclined to proffer inordinate weight to psychological factors while devaluing others. The old adage, “When all you’ve got is hammer, the whole world looks like a nail to you,” seemed to apply. From this I concluded that the way Psychology data is collected at universities should probably be revisited and should be far less reliant on the participation of college students in general and Psych majors in particular. There might also be a problem when so much social science data is being gathered, analyzed and reported by a cohort disinclined to thinking in terms of personal agency and moral culpability. It should not be surprising if a scientific discipline so comprised might be at particular hazard with regard to its ethical best practices.
Wow. The two episodes on academic fraud have been wonderfully done yet so painfully shocking. I’m a bit of a skeptic so it wouldn’t surprise me to hear a bit of this is going on but to hear about the magnitude of the fraud is disheartening. I’m glad to see you going full force into this issue even though you have given academia a lot of credibility in the past. I’ll be curious to see how this new perspective affects your future podcasts and the research that goes into them.
The bit about paying to be an author on papers absolutely blew my mind. I'm in undergrad right now for science and I had NO IDEA this was even a thing.
"they left out physicists" I'm watching this video/podcast as an assignment for my upper-level physics class as a physics major...not sure how to feel here...
I just had a conversation about publishing requirements in universities and we both agreed that they are a large cause for the illegitimate research going on out there. Being forced to compromise on anything because you are afraid of losing your position is pathetic. Universities must remove this from the contracts of professors. Or at least make it minimal. "Publish on a topic relevant to your field once every five years." Fine. And yes, ALL data must be made public. Someone should come up with a catch phrase like, "Free the data!" Yeah, I like that one. Copyright!!
What if... Jornals were to publish questions then researches would suggest research to answer the questions Researcher and Journal negotiate the research to be done and journals would agree to publish agreed upon research
This series has been fascinating. Thank you for the always insightful, usually new-to-me topics. I just love this show.
Forty years ago as an undergraduate, I participated in several psychological experiments as a test subject. I was incentivized to do this by being given credit in various Psychology courses. I was not a Psych major but very interested in the subject, particularly in Social Psychology. I found Social Psych especially fascinating because its findings seemed to so often be counterintuitive, at least to my sophomoric young mind. Up to that point, I had mistakenly believed that most people were primarily rational in their epistemological outlooks. Social Psychology was disabusing me of that naivety.
Even at that time, it struck me that the participant pool from which data was derived was highly problematic. The majority of participants were Psychology majors. That alone was a delimiting demographic that didn’t seem to be calculated into the findings. As a non major but someone who had an inordinate amount of experience socializing with those seeking degrees in the field, anecdotally at least, it seemed that Psychology majors were a relatively unique cohort.
The stereotype that Psych majors tend to pursue this course of study to unpack their own psychological demons was not without some foundation. From my perspective, it seemed that there was an inordinate amount of sophomoric self analysis going on among Psychology undergrads and that they tended to come to self serving conclusions. Unsurprisingly, they rarely concluded that their difficulties could be best attributed to any intellectual or moral failings on their parts. In fact, they weren’t big on personal agency, tended to pathologize everything and seemed to be a particularly amoral lot. Like all young determinists, they were inclined to proffer inordinate weight to psychological factors while devaluing others. The old adage, “When all you’ve got is hammer, the whole world looks like a nail to you,” seemed to apply.
From this I concluded that the way Psychology data is collected at universities should probably be revisited and should be far less reliant on the participation of college students in general and Psych majors in particular. There might also be a problem when so much social science data is being gathered, analyzed and reported by a cohort disinclined to thinking in terms of personal agency and moral culpability. It should not be surprising if a scientific discipline so comprised might be at particular hazard with regard to its ethical best practices.
Wow. The two episodes on academic fraud have been wonderfully done yet so painfully shocking. I’m a bit of a skeptic so it wouldn’t surprise me to hear a bit of this is going on but to hear about the magnitude of the fraud is disheartening. I’m glad to see you going full force into this issue even though you have given academia a lot of credibility in the past. I’ll be curious to see how this new perspective affects your future podcasts and the research that goes into them.
The bit about paying to be an author on papers absolutely blew my mind. I'm in undergrad right now for science and I had NO IDEA this was even a thing.
@@5Pebbsi Right!? If I was a rich scientist, I could lie my way to a Nobel prize! But, there are no rich scientists... Are there?
"they left out physicists"
I'm watching this video/podcast as an assignment for my upper-level physics class as a physics major...not sure how to feel here...
Lesson to be learned is, just don't make up stuff. You'll be fine. Have a great career!
I just had a conversation about publishing requirements in universities and we both agreed that they are a large cause for the illegitimate research going on out there. Being forced to compromise on anything because you are afraid of losing your position is pathetic. Universities must remove this from the contracts of professors. Or at least make it minimal. "Publish on a topic relevant to your field once every five years." Fine. And yes, ALL data must be made public. Someone should come up with a catch phrase like, "Free the data!" Yeah, I like that one. Copyright!!
Insightful!
Supplying the raw data should be required
Yes, the reasons given for not doing so in the first podcast were weak. Suspicious, even.
I am going to listen to this. I hope they talk about Ariely.
What if...
Jornals were to publish questions
then researches would suggest research to answer the questions
Researcher and Journal
negotiate the research to be done
and journals would agree to publish agreed upon research
Get politics out of science.. mission impossible? Could be.
"Publish or perish" isn't a saying for nothing.