Key Takeaways: Field Autopsy — Psychology
The Big Idea
Psychology experienced the most dramatic boom-bust cycle in modern social science — and responded with the most ambitious institutional self-correction. The replication crisis was produced by incentive structures that rewarded flashy-but-unreliable research; the correction was enabled by structural features (low switching cost, high alternative availability, junior researcher access) that other fields lack.
Psychology's Arc
| Era | Paradigm | Failure Mode |
|---|---|---|
| 1870s–1910s | Introspection | Unfalsifiability (different labs, different results) |
| 1890s–1960s | Psychoanalysis | Unfalsifiability (any outcome confirms the theory) |
| 1920s–1960s | Behaviorism | Overcorrection (ruling out mental processes entirely) |
| 1950s–1980s | Cognitive revolution | Imported error (computer metaphor) |
| 1980s–2010 | Social psychology "golden age" | Full failure mode stack (QRPs + publication bias + authority cascade) |
| 2011–present | Replication crisis + Open Science | Genuine correction (in progress; overcorrection risk) |
Why Social Psychology Was Uniquely Vulnerable
Small effects + noisy domains + narrative appeal + low methodological barriers + celebrity culture = maximum vulnerability to the failure mode stack
The Open Science Reforms
Pre-registration, registered reports, open data, large-scale collaborative replications, statistical reform — genuine correction that is spreading to other fields
The Meta-Lesson
If the field that studies cognitive bias exhibited those biases at institutional scale, no field is immune. Understanding bias does not protect against it. Only structural safeguards provide protection.
Unfinished Business
The incentive structure (publication count, journal prestige) remains unchanged. The WEIRD problem remains unaddressed. The revision myth is already forming.
Epistemic Audit — Chapter 25 Addition
Assess your field for: QRP equivalents, replication culture, Open Science equivalents, robust vs. fragile subfield distinction.
What's Coming Next
Chapter 26: Field Autopsy: Nutrition Science — the field that made everyone distrust science.