How Much Of Psychology Can We Trust?

Can we still have faith in psychology in the face of the ‘replication crisis’? DR LISA FELDMAN BARRETT believes so

- Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett

The last few years have seen a lot of discussion about a ‘replication crisis’ or ‘credibility crisis’ in psychology. Various scientific findings, it seems, don’t appear to be repeatable when other scientists run exactly the same experiments. Most of the focus in this crisis is on how scientists behave: were the original experiments biased? Was the work sloppy? Was someone gaming the system or even cheating? But perhaps a more pernicious problem is deeply rooted in how people think.

Many people who practise, use and report on the science of psychology assume that thoughts, feelings, behaviours and other psychological outcomes are the result of one or two strong factors or causes. This is called a ‘mechanistic mindset’. Typical experiments attempt to isolate one or two variables, manipulate them and observe moderate to strong effects that are easy to replicate. For example, if we cause people to feel angry by showing them a film clip that violates their deeply held values, a mechanistic mindset says that they should scowl, their blood pressure should rise and they should be more likely to act aggressively.