Read on Twitter
Thread: A Peak Into High Quality Discourse Among Reformers in Psych, sparked by a recent paper.
I am going to mostly just retweet their excellent points (which stand alone, regardless of your views of the triggering paper). But first, the paper:
I am going to mostly just retweet their excellent points (which stand alone, regardless of your views of the triggering paper). But first, the paper:
https://psyarxiv.com/y38m9
Title is "Using social and behavioural science to support Covid-19 Pandemic Response."
It has a cast of some of the most eminent, influential psychologists alive today. Ivy League, Stanford, NYU.
Accepted at Nature Human Behavior, an Apex Journal.
Title is "Using social and behavioural science to support Covid-19 Pandemic Response."
It has a cast of some of the most eminent, influential psychologists alive today. Ivy League, Stanford, NYU.
Accepted at Nature Human Behavior, an Apex Journal.
Despite having meaningful-sounding topic headers (Threat perception, Prejudice&discrimination...) its very superficial.
Consider this conclusion to the threat section:
"Communication strategies must strike a balane between breaking through optimism bias without inducing feelings of anxiety and dread."
If you think that is a deep conclusion, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
"Communication strategies must strike a balane between breaking through optimism bias without inducing feelings of anxiety and dread."
If you think that is a deep conclusion, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
It goes on like that. But enough of my views. On to the interesting stuff. The stand alone comments of the reformers & critics.
Brent Roberts was a science reformer before science reform was a thing. Here he comments on what it takes to get policy makers to listen to science. Note the iffy connection of "truth" or "validity" to getting heard. Rigor is in there, but so is status. https://twitter.com/BrentWRoberts/status/1249433538434347008
Here Tal Yarkoni (whose reform accomplishments are already too long for Tw), as part of a thread that is worth reading in its entirety, argues why its a bad idea for policy makers to just do something, even if the science is tenuous: https://twitter.com/talyarkoni/status/1249382715310342144
He continues here. (Me: "Yup: See my earlier comments on the Nature paper"). https://twitter.com/talyarkoni/status/1249382829898846209
THIS is a killer point that goes WAY beyond Covid, or applying science. It is exactly what all the anti-status quo, anti-hierarchy stuff in academia completely misses. (neither he nor I whitewash wrongs committed by the powerful; this point still stands): https://twitter.com/talyarkoni/status/1249383332229627905
This, too, goes way beyond Covid. Diversity statements anyone? Implicit bias trainings? Harassment proceedings that lack due process? This problem is everywhere... https://twitter.com/talyarkoni/status/1249384420903129088
Back to Brent's comments. Remember that Nature paper I just linked? https://twitter.com/BrentWRoberts/status/1249365142791487488
And this point is so vastly broad and general it should inspire social psych organizations to mandate that their members take an oath not to promote policy or interventions w/o f*cktons of very high quality evidence. https://twitter.com/BrentWRoberts/status/1249366497325191169
And by f*cktons, I mean something like this (which I got from another science reformer, @chrisdc77, this is 98% not original):
In this, another leader of science reform in psych, Simine Vazire, gently raises questions about strong claims by a famous, influential psychologist (former President of major org, eminent, etc.): https://twitter.com/siminevazire/status/1249087757147934720
So Rich Lucas, another science reform leader investigated one of the studies that Lisa Feldman Barrett (bigwig whose claims Simine questioned) references to support her argument that social support influences bio outcomes: https://twitter.com/rlucas11/status/1249088300046069763
For the uninitiated: p-values near .05 (eg, .04) are often regarded with dubiousness and even suspicion by many at the forefront of psych science reform.
In normal English? The study is anything but definitive.
In normal English? The study is anything but definitive.
Most of the retw'd folks above have stand-alone threads on these issues; if interested, read them.
My bottom lines:
1. The supreme confidence among some scientists (and laypeople) in claims based on small scale, unvetted, often weak and even misinterpreted studies is staggering
My bottom lines:
1. The supreme confidence among some scientists (and laypeople) in claims based on small scale, unvetted, often weak and even misinterpreted studies is staggering
2. Psychologists and social scientists more broadly should be far far (far far) more cautious in making policy, law, or real-world recommendations than they often are and should require far far (far far) better data than they usually do when making such recommendations.
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