How Politicized Is Political Psychology and Is There Anything We Should Do about It?

Abstract

This exchange pivots around two critical issues: (1) How politicized is political psychology?; (2) What, if anything, should we do about it? I propose the turnabout test as aformal method for gauging the politicization of research programs (a test that can be usefully supplemented by a second procedure, the falsifiability test). Both White's and Sears's research programs do not fare well by these standards. I also warn of the consequences of adopting the alternative epistemologies sketched by Kroeger and Sapiro and by Sears, both of which suggest I am unduly concerned by the dangers of politicization. I conclude by sketching my own epistemological views which include a Weberian emphasis on the separation between politics and scholarship, a Popperian/Lakatosian emphasis on testable theories, and a Meehlian stress on construct validation. From this perspective, although political psychologists can never achieve value neutrality, they can and should do a much better job than they have in monitoring and containing the impact of extraneous moral-political values on the conduct and interpretation of research.