Psychologists’ psychologies of psychologists in a time of crisis.

Abstract

Beset by detection of replication failures and questionable research practices over the last decade, psychology has been deemed by many to be in crisis. The situation is exceptional not only for the many investigative practices being scrutinized but also for the attention given to the undue influence of psychologists' psychology on those practices. Comparative analysis of 2 crises finds that the earlier one focused on the experimenters' activities within the laboratory, whereas the current concerns center on experimenters' postexperimental work. Whereas the previous crisis did include deep concerns about experimenters, the currently offered psychologies of fellow psychologists are distinctive in their frequency, intensity, and considerable reliance upon established knowledge about human thought and behavior. In so utilizing scientific psychology to assess psychology, the current appraisals give richer evidence of the circuitry of psychological knowledge as it travels from the laboratory outward and back. They give considerable attention to the scientists' moral characteristics, whereas the earlier crisis generated concerns about experimenters' conduct in the laboratory and the politics surrounding the application of psychological knowledge. Through their direct discussions of personal and moral conduct, the assessments also resonate with uncertainties about scientists' self-control, normative ethics, and emotions. Taken together, the psychologies and attendant uncertainties illuminate present conditions of psychology's scientific self and invite reflection on the close connections between that self, ethos, and epistemology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).