Psychology's dilemma: an institutional neurosis?

Public skepticism of psychology: why many people perceive the study of human behavior as unscientific.

Data indicate that large percentages of the general public regard psychology's scientific status with considerable skepticism. I examine 6 criticisms commonly directed at the scientific basis of psychology (e.g., psychology is merely common sense, psychology does not use scientific methods, psychology is not useful to society) and offer 6 rebuttals. I then address 8 potential sources of public ...

Institutional Neurosis

The Hubble hypothesis and the developmentalist's dilemma.

Developmental psychopathology stands poised at the close of the 20th century on the horns of a major scientific dilemma. The essence of this dilemma lies in the contrast between its heuristically rich open system concepts on the one hand, and the closed system paradigm it adopted from mainstream psychology for investigating those models on the other. Many of the research methods, assessment str...

Environmental dilemmas revisited: structural consequences from the angle of institutional ergonomics

The structure of a social dilemma lies behind many environmental problems. Mingling temporal aspects of resources with the structure of the social dilemma often leads to wrong conclusions. Therefore, it is worth analytically separating temporal aspects from structural aspects of the dilemma. This article concentrates solely on the structural aspects of the dilemma and the grades of complexity w...

‘Irresponsible and a Disservice’: The integrity of social psychology turns on the free will dilemma

Over the last few years, a number of works have been published asserting both the putative prosocial benefits of belief in free will and the possible dangers of disclosing doubts about the existence of free will. Although concerns have been raised over the disservice of keeping such doubts from the public, this does not highlight the full danger that is presented by social psychology's newly fo...