Psychology: Science in spite of itself

Abstract

Many fields of science — social, life, physical and medical — have had to acknowledge in recent years that much of their published research is not replicable (see M. Munafò Nature 543, 619–620; 2017). Psychological science was hit hard by that problem early this decade. But it quickly joined the vanguard of reform. In The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology — part history, part autobiography, largely manifesto — Chambers identifies some “sins”, from biased reasoning to outright fraud, that led us to this point. And he describes specific reforms, some already well under way, that will make science more transparent, accessible and reproducible. As he shows, the sins are (mostly) not those of individual scientists, but of the processes and incentive structures under which scientists work.