Has social psychology lost touch with reality? Exploring public perceptions of the realism and consequentiality of social psychological research

Abstract

Do public perceptions of social psychological research align with this field's ostensible goal of describing and explaining real-world social behavior? There has been mounting concern about a disconnect between social psychological research and reality, which in turn raises concerns about social psychology's public image. But do non-experts agree with social psychologists that this field in its current state has little to say about real-world behavior? In a preregistered study (N = 335), we assessed perceptions of recent (2018–2019) social psychological research published in the field's “top” journals along three dimensions: perceived verisimilitude (i.e., whether study procedures are representative of everyday life), perceived veridicality (i.e., whether findings seem likely to generalize to real-world settings), and perceived consequentiality (i.e., whether research questions and findings are relevant to everyday life and important social issues). In contrast to social psychologists themselves, an online sample of non-experts expressed relatively favorable perceptions of social psychological research along all three dimensions. Additionally, perceptions of realism (i.e., verisimilitude and veridicality) and consequentiality were positively correlated at the article level and participants' attitudes toward psychology predicted these perceptions. Our findings suggest that despite widespread unease about social psychology's real-world relevance among social psychologists, members of the public do not appear to share this view, a finding that may help alleviate concerns about the field's ability to continue to attract funding, new talent, and interdisciplinary collaboration.