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Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science1 BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2015), Page 1 of 58 doi:10.1017/S0140525X14000430, e130 Political diversity will improve social psychological science1 José L. Duarte Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281 [email protected] http://joseduarte.com Jarret T. Crawford Psychology Department, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ 08628 [email protected] http://crawford.pages.tcnj.edu/ Charlotta Stern Department of Sociology, Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden lotta.stern@sofi.su.se http://www2.sofi.su.se/∼lst/ Jonathan Haidt Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, NY 10012 [email protected] http://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/jonathan-haidt Lee Jussim Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 [email protected] www.rci.rutgers.edu/∼jussim/ Philip E. Tetlock Psychology Department, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 [email protected] http://www.sas.upenn.edu/tetlock/ Abstract: Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity – particularly diversity of viewpoints – for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: (1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years. (2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike. (3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority’s thinking. (4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology. Keywords: academic bias, academic diversity, confirmation bias, discrimination, open science, political psychology, social psychology He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. to both limit integrity failures and broadly increase the ro- — John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859/1989, p. 38) bustness and validity of social psychology (Funder et al. 2014, p. 18). In this article, we suggest that one largely 1. Introduction overlooked cause of failure is a lack of political diversity. We review evidence suggesting that political diversity and In the last few years, social psychology has faced a series of dissent would improve the reliability and validity of social challenges to the validity of its research, including a few psychological science. high-profile replication failures, a handful of fraud cases, We are not the first to make this point. Tetlock (1994) and several articles on questionable research practices identified ways in which moral-political values led to unjus- and inflated effect sizes (John et al. 2012; Simmons et al. tified conclusions about nuclear deterrence and prejudice, 2011). In response, the Society for Personality and Social and Redding (2001) showed how the lack of political diver- Psychology (SPSP) convened a Task Force on Publication sity across psychology’s subfields threatens the validity of and Research Practices which provided a set of statistical, the conclusions of psychological science. Unfortunately, methodological, and practical recommendations intended these concerns have gone largely unheeded. As we shall © Cambridge University Press 2015 0140-525X/15 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Univ of Washington, on 12 Jul 2019 at 17:42:20, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms1 . https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14000430 Duarte et al.: Political diversity will improve social psychological science show, the reasons for concern are even greater now than research claims. Section 4 draws on findings from organiza- when Tetlock and Redding published their critiques. tional psychology to show how increasing political diversity This article makes five distinct contributions to the scien- can improve social psychological science. Section 5 examines tific literature, each corresponding to a separate section of possible sources of political homogeneity in social psychology the paper. Section 2 shows that although psychology once today, including differences between liberals and non-liberals had considerable political diversity, the trend over the last in ability and interest, hostility toward non-liberal views, and four decades has been toward political homogeneity. discrimination against non-liberals. In section 6, we offer rec- Section 3 identifies three risk points where the lack of ommendations for how social psychologists can increase polit- political diversity can undermine the validity of scientific ical diversity within their own ranks and reduce the harmful effects of political homogeneity on their research. Some comments on terminology are needed before we begin. First, we use the term “social psychology” to also JOSÉ L. DUARTE is a doctoral candidate in Social Psy- include personality psychology because the two fields are chology at Arizona State University, and a National closely intertwined and because it is awkward to refer re- Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. His peatedly to “social and personality psychological science.” empirical work focuses on various forms of envy, and We focus on social psychology because it is the subfield fl the individual personality differences that in uence of psychology that most directly examines ideologically them. He also works on issues of methodological validity controversial topics, and is thus most in need of political and statistical inference in social science. diversity. Second, we focus on conservatives as an under- JARRET T. CRAWFORD is an Associate Professor of Psy- represented group because the data on the prevalence in chology at The College of New Jersey. He has published psychology of different ideological groups is best for the several articles on ideological variation in political judg- liberal-conservative contrast – and the departure from the ment biases, political intolerance and prejudice, and the proportion of liberals and conservatives in the U.S. popula- antecedents of political and intergroup attitudes. tion is so dramatic. However, we argue that the field needs more non-liberals however they specifically self-identify CHARLOTTA STERN is an Associate Professor of Sociol- (e.g., libertarian, moderate). Third, it is important to ogy at Stockholm University, Sweden. She has pub- recognize that conservatism is not monolithic – indeed, lished articles on political worldviews as well as policy self-identified conservatives may be more diverse in their views of academics in the United States and in Sweden. political beliefs than are liberals (Feldman & Johnston JONATHAN HAIDT is the Thomas Cooley Professor of 2014; Klein & Stern 2005; Stenner 2009). Fourth, we Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern note for the curious reader that the collaborators on this School of Business. He is a social psychologist who article include one liberal, one centrist, two libertarians, studies the intuitive foundations of morality, and how one whose politics defy a simple left/right categorization, morality varies across cultures and across the political and one neo-positivist contrarian who favors a don’t-ask- spectrum. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothe- don’t-tell policy in which scholarship should be judged on sis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (Basic its merits. None identifies as conservative or Republican. Books, 2006) and of The Righteous Mind: Why Good A final preparatory comment we must make is that the People are Divided by Politics and Religion (Pantheon lack of political diversity is not a threat to the validity of spe- Books, 2012). cific studies in many and perhaps most areas of research in social psychology. The lack of diversity causes problems for LEE JUSSIM is Professor of Psychology, Rutgers Univer- fi sity, where he was Chair from 2010–2013. Much of his the scienti c process primarily in areas related to the contribution to this article occurred while he was a political concerns of the Left – areas such as race, gender, Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the stereotyping, environmentalism, power, and inequality – as Behavioral Sciences, 2013–2014. He is the author of well as in areas where conservatives themselves are Social Perception and Social Reality: Why Accuracy studied, such as in moral and political psychology. And Dominates Bias and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Oxford even in those areas, we are not suggesting that most of University Press, 2012). In 2014–2015, he is teaching fl fi the studies are awed or erroneous. Rather, we argue that courses on scienti c integrity. More info: http://www. the collective efforts of researchers in politically charged rci.rutgers.edu/~jussim/ Blog: Rabble Rouser at: http://www.psychologytoday. areas may fail to converge upon the truth when there are com/blog/rabble-rouser
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