ArticleIntegrative psychological & behavioral science2016
Why Psychology Cannot be an Empirical Science.
Article in Integrative psychological & behavioral science, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychology's Questionable Research Fundamentals (QRFs): Key problems in quantitative psychology and psychological measurement beyond Questionable Research Practices (QRPs).Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Statistics is not measurement: The inbuilt semantics of psychometric scales and language-based models obscures crucial epistemic differences.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The limit of human intelligence.Heliyon · 2024Article
- The Dialogical Self of Taoistic Dynamics: How scientists and practitioners can trigger the discovery of a harmonious self.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2024Article
- Human Capital Creation: A Collective Psychological, Social, Organizational and Religious Perspective.Journal of religion and health · 2024Article
- Epistemic circularity and measurement validity in quantitative psychology: insights from Fechner's psychophysics.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- The hidden complexity of the simple world of basic experimental psychology: the principal and practical limits of gaining psychological knowledge using the experimental method.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Rhetoric of psychological measurement theory and practice.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- Work from home: A behavioral model of Indonesian education workers' productivity during Covid-19.Heliyon · 2023Article
- The Intelligent Attitude: What Is Missing from Intelligence Tests.Journal of Intelligence · 2022Article
- The Tangled Knots of Neuroscientific Experimentation.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2022Article
- Where is the Trouble in Pseudo-empirical Research?Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2022Article
- Is psychological science progressing? Explained variance in PsycINFO articles during the period 1956 to 2022.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Rating scales institutionalise a network of logical errors and conceptual problems in research practices: A rigorous analysis showing ways to tackle psychology's crises.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Imagination in General Psychology: Thinking with Luca Tateo's "A Theory of Imagining, Knowing, and Understanding".Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2020Article
- Staying with Questions and Resisting Quick Answers: Commentary on Zagaria, Andò, and Zennaro.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2020Article
- The Practice of Experimental Psychology: An Inevitably Postmodern Endeavor.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Review
- Statements About the Pervasiveness of Behavior Require Data About the Pervasiveness of Behavior.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Review
- Agency, Chance, and the Scientific Status of Psychology.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2018Review
- Building Blocks of Psychology: on Remaking the Unkept Promises of Early Schools.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The current empirical paradigm for psychological research is criticized because it ignores the irreversibility of psychological processes, the infinite number of influential factors, the pseudo-empirical nature of many hypotheses, and the methodological implications of social interactivity. An additional point is that the differences and correlations usually found are much too small to be useful in psychological practice and in daily life. Together, these criticisms imply that an objective, accumulative, empirical and theoretical science of psychology is an impossible project.
Indexed as
Identifiers
26712604What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.