The Function of Literature in Psychological Science

Abstract

The recent reform debates in psychological science, prompted by a widespread crisis of confidence, have exposed and destabilized the so-called myth of self-correction, that is, the problem that most scientists perceive their disciplines as self-correcting without engaging in actual practices that correct the scientific record. In this paper, building on the idea of self-correction as a myth, I propose another myth common to psychological science: the myth of self-organization. The myth of self-organization is the idea that scientific literature will organize itself into something the community adding to it would recognize as systematic knowledge; while the actual members of those communities do not engage in effective ways of organizing it. I argue for the existence of the myth self-organization by taking a historical look at how the scientific literature was construed by psychologists during the 20th century. In my view, the literature, and behaviors of scientists related to it, becomes a social institution exerting influence over the science it belongs to. I conclude with a critical discussion of self-organization through the debates about preregistration and theory formalization in psychology’s reform movement.

Process and Bureaucracy: Scientific Reform as Civilisation

“…In contrast, other directions for distinction are imaginable and are in fact practiced. They include preregistration scepticism as a movement (Flis, 2022) and investing in more and explicit reflection on science, rigor and integrity (Field & Derksen, 2020). Each of these forms of distinction are accompanied by their own bureaucratic tools, differing from preregistration, registered reports, exploratory reports, post-publication review infrastructures and more, to include positionality statements and discussions, reflection diaries and many more.…”

Questionable Metascience Practices

“…Furthermore, several commentators have noted that these metascientific foci may have the unintended consequence of alienating scientists whose work does not fit with this particular view of science (Bennett, 2021;Kessler et al, 2021;Levin & Leonelli, 2017;Malich & Rehmann-Sutter, 2022;McDermott, 2022, p. 58;Penders, 2022;Pownall et al, 2021, p. 530;Prosser et al, 2022;Wentzel, 2021, p. 170). To address this problem, and to facilitate the recognition of their own biases, metascientists should continue to diversify their membership and embrace scientific diversity and pluralism (Andreoletti, 2020;Flis, 2022;Ger-vais, 2021;Grossmann, 2021;Leonelli, 2022;Pownall, 2022).…”

“…Questionable Metascience PracticesDanziger, 1990, p. 5;Gao, 2014); 3. statisticism/mathematistry: an overemphasis on statistics as both a problem and a solution in science(Boring, 1919;Brower, 1949;Fiedler, 2018;Proulx & Morey, 2021); 4. naïve empiricism(Strong, 1991): the view that science progresses through the accumulation of replicable effects(Flis, 2022; …”

Znanstvena reforma i replikacijska kriza u psihologiji

“…Rasprave o replikacijskoj krizi zaista dubinski zahvaćaju psihologijsku znanost: na najplićoj razini u metodološkome smislu, na nešto dubljoj u normativnome aspektu etike znanstvenoga rada te na dubinskoj razini kada dovode u pitanje epistemološke temelje discipline ili čak metafizičke postavke u koje sami empiričari rijetko kada zalaze. Širu se raspravu može pratiti u radovima filozofa (Feest, 2019;Maatman, 2021;Morawski, 2019;Romero, 2019), povjesničara (Derksen, 2019;Flis, 2019Flis, , 2022Mülberger, 2022) i sociologa (Nelson i sur., 2022;.…”

“…To, naravno, nije zaista tako iako je psihologija jedno od područja koje je najviše opisano u diskursu krize te vjerojatno područje s najjačim reformskim pokretom kao odgovorom. Problemi s replikacijom i lošim metodološkim standardima uglavnom zahvaćaju sve discipline koje uvriježeno koriste testiranje značajnosti kao kriterij za ulazak članaka u literaturu (za međuodnos literature, reforme i metodologije v. Flis, 2022) te su prepoznati i u drugim područjima poput biomedicine ili drugih kvantitativnih društvenih znanosti (za perspektivu iz područja biomedicine, koja je posebice kritična prema izuzimanju psihologije kao posebne "žrtve" replikacijske krize, v. Nelson i sur., 2022). Pri tome se identificiranju problema s replikabilnošću i lošim metodološko-statističkim standardima u širemu kontekstu od psihologije razvila nova mlada "znanost o znanosti" koju njezini praktikanti nazivaju metaznanost.…”