Psychology as Science and as Propaganda

Abstract

The target article highlights research known to have promoted unjustified politicized claims. It also points out that, although researcher political biases might account for this, there are often alternative explanations. It then discusses areas of research in which those alternative explanations are unlikely, so that the best explanation is political bias. The target article is fundamentally correct. Nonetheless, we argue that political bias is a characteristic of the claims made in research articles rather than primarily a characteristic of scientists. Inasmuch as some claim is not wrong simply by virtue of supporting an ideological narrative, to detect politically biased research, we identify four questions to be answered. Test 0 is necessary but not sufficient to infer political bias. If Test 0 is passed, then at least one of Tests 1, 2, or 3 must also be passed. Test 0: Does the study vindicate some political narrative? Test 1: Did they misinterpret or misrepresent their results in ways that unjustifiably advance a particular politicized narrative? Test 2: Do the authors systematically ignore papers and studies inconsistent with their ideology-affirming conclusions? Test 3: Did they leap to ideology-affirming conclusions based on weak data? We close with recommendations for preventing politically biased conclusions.