Exercises: Field Autopsy — Psychology

Part A: Comprehension and Application

A.1. The chapter traces five paradigm shifts in psychology's 150-year history. For each paradigm (introspection, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, cognitive revolution, social psychology's golden age), identify the primary failure mode that eventually undermined it.

A.2. Explain the relationship between Daryl Bem's precognition paper and the replication crisis. Why was the paper more important for what it revealed about methods than for what it claimed about precognition?

A.3. Define three questionable research practices (QRPs) and explain how each increases the probability of publishing false-positive findings. For each, explain how the Open Science reform addresses it.

A.4. The chapter distinguishes between psychology's robust and fragile subfields. What structural features determine robustness? Apply this analysis to your own field: which of its subfields would you predict to be robust vs. fragile?

A.5. Explain the WEIRD problem and why it compounds the replication crisis. Why is the WEIRD problem harder to correct than the QRP problem?

Part B: Analysis

B.1. Apply the Correction Speed Model to psychology's replication crisis response. Compare your scoring to the chapter's analysis. Which variable was most important in enabling psychology's relatively fast and deep correction?

B.2. The chapter describes how the "publication pressure chain" creates systematic selection for unreliable research. Map a similar incentive chain in your own field. What is the equivalent of "publication count" as the metric that drives behavior? What are the consequences?

B.3. Compare psychology's crisis response to medicine's (Chapter 23) and economics' (Chapter 24). Which field has corrected most deeply? Which has the strongest correction infrastructure? Which is most vulnerable to the next crisis?

B.4. The "meta-lesson" states that the researchers who studied cognitive bias were themselves subject to those biases. What does this imply about the limits of awareness as a defense against failure modes? Does understanding bias protect against it?

Part C: Synthesis and Evaluation

C.1. Evaluate whether psychology's Open Science reforms represent genuine correction, cosmetic correction, or overcorrection. Use the markers from Chapter 19 (genuine vs. cosmetic) and the five-test diagnostic from Chapter 21 (overcorrection). Is it possible that the reforms are simultaneously genuine AND overcorrecting?

C.2. The chapter suggests that psychology's crisis narrative is already being sanitized into a revision myth. Write both versions — the "messy" version (500 words) and the "clean" version (200 words) — using the framework from Chapter 20. What is lost in the clean version?

C.3. Design a "crisis early warning system" for psychology (or your own field) that would detect the next accumulation of QRPs before it reaches crisis level. What would it monitor? Who would operate it? How would it resist being captured by the incentive structures it monitors?

Part D: Mixed Practice (Interleaved)

D.1. A popular psychology finding (your choice) has just failed to replicate. You are a journalist covering the story. Using frameworks from this chapter AND Chapter 6 (plausible story) AND Chapter 20 (revision myth), write both the misleading version of the story ("Science says X was wrong all along!") and the accurate version. What structural understanding does the accurate version require?

D.2. A department chair is deciding whether to require pre-registration for all studies conducted in the department. Using this chapter AND Chapter 21 (overcorrection), advise the chair. What are the benefits? What are the risks? What calibrated position would you recommend?

Part E: Deep Dive Extensions

E.1. Read one of the Many Labs replication reports. Write a 500-word analysis of which findings replicated, which didn't, and what structural features predicted replication success.

E.2. Research the registered reports format in detail. Evaluate whether it successfully addresses publication bias while avoiding the chilling effect on exploratory research. What modifications would you propose?