Elsevier: First Sweden and now Germany

There is a battle going on to open up the published work of researchers to the public for their use, without the inconvenience of paywalls. I am not sure that the move to open access is necessarily inevitable, but it is a probable outcome. It is also an understandable outcome, given that the work that goes into academic journals is often funded by the public, as are such functions as peer review. The pressure to resist open access is certainly enormous for those conglomerates that benefit from the status quo. Expect those conglomerates, like Elsevier, to try to make an example of nations trying to treat publicly funded science as a public good - as is the case in Germany. What is happening in Germany falls on the heels of the recent breakdown in negotiations in Sweden. It's a battle the conglomerate in this case should not expect to win on the basis of its apparent power. Love it or hate it, outlets to make scientific output publicly available are already available (SciHub comes to mind), and Elsevier may only serve to encourage German (and Swedish) scientists and institutions to become more resourceful in creating alternative ways to access such information. One thing I may have mentioned in private conversation several years ago was that the publishers needed to change their business models in order to get ahead of a change that was already underfoot. Obviously, that did not happen. Apparently the corporate Goliaths will fight with everything they have got. One way or another, however, they'll have to figure out how to coexist with open access models. That is the probable wave of the future.

Potentially interesting article on the prevalence of narcissism among scientists

I am bookmarking this one (Science, narcissism, and the quest for visibility) for later. Gave it a cursory scan, and it looks like a useful thought piece. The article does not provide any original data, but does certainly offer an enterprising researcher some ways to test the author's premise. Let's just say it struck a chord. A reader at PubPeer offers this summary:

This is an interesting analysis of narcissism in science. The author argues that: 1) the top level of the scientific hierarchy is populated by narcissistic individuals, 2) narcissism is deleterious for science because it encourages competition over cooperation, and frauds, and because it leads to concentrating resources on a few powerful individuals, 3) the current academic system favors narcissism, at the expense of sound science. An example of narcissistic behavior in science is the obsession for publishing in glam journals, shaping scientific work into engaging stories that highlight the heroic quality of authors.

Make of it what you will.

Quantity or quality

Our field, like many academic disciplines, has emphasized publication quantity to an extent that arguably at best leads to minimal progress in our collective knowledge and at worst compromises our understanding of the phenomena we study. This is hardly a blazing insight I am offering, nor hardly a novel one.

See an excerpt by Tulving and Madigan from nearly a half century ago:

Ouch!

Tulving & Madigan (1970) pic.twitter.com/YLEtWRylV7

— Frederik Aust (@FrederikAust) July 8, 2018

And it get's worse. pic.twitter.com/mKojNeasgb

— Frederik Aust (@FrederikAust) July 8, 2018

Brutal.

And yet that appears to be a fair assessment. Right now, when I go about my work in the classroom, I am increasingly asking myself what I can honestly tell my students. The aftermath of projects such as that conducted by the Open Science Collaboration (to name but one) is one that we are still coming to grips with. One thing I am doing beyond simply opening up some of these dark corners of my field to students in my various classes is to question the need to burden myself with a publication load that goes beyond what is reasonable (given teaching and service responsibilities, family obligations, etc.). Increasingly, I am looking at tying up some loose ends by completing write-ups to existing data sets, and beyond that sparingly take up new research projects (and then only if they appear to be beneficial for the students who wish to be involved, or at least are genuinely interesting to me and might be of some use to others in my field). Why? Because I suspect Tulving was clearly on to something regarding his own area of expertise, and I see something similar in mine. I am completing a meta-analysis on TABP and aggression, and the upshot is that a fair number of human hours were spent researching a question that had no basis in reality. Our understanding of the moderating role of personality variables on social stimuli (e.g. provocation) on aggression was not advanced one bit by that set of studies. It is very clear to me that research on media violence and research on the weapons effect has been effectively stagnant for years. Great. We can suggest that such stimuli prime aggressive thoughts, but that is relatively low hanging fruit - metaphorically speaking. Behavioral outcomes have been far trickier. In any event, given the dearth of knowledge of the psychometric properties of the various DVs in these areas of research, nor much effort to standardize the administration of the measurements of the DVs of interest, there isn't a lot to inspire confidence in those measures. I find myself wondering what we know now a half century after, say Berkowitz & LePage (1967) and now, and am increasingly struggling to formulate a satisfying response. But hey, we generated a lot of studies. We as a field were "productive." So there is that, I suppose.

Speaking of stories

I think part of our role as educators is to have a good story to tell about our particular area(s) of expertise. Part of my narrative is that I am trained as a scientist first and foremost. As a scientist and as an educator, my job is to understand the facts available to the full extent possible. In the process, I am quite aware that not all facts are created equal, and that some are unintentional digressions whereas other facts my be intentional misdirects. Regardless, those of us who use those false narratives as we tell our own stories are going to lead our students astray and give us a false sense of security that those of us involved in a very young science have it all figured out.

For the longest time, I found the treatment of research in textbooks to be highly frustrating. Students gain the impression that research is just one string of successes, which then build upon other successes. The process on the surface appears seamless. And yet, when my students conduct their own original research, rarely do they find clean results. Often - sometimes because of their own methodological mistakes and sometimes because the research literature from which they draw is a bit murky - the process of doing science is far from seamless. The seams are not only visible, but visibly fraying. I find comfort in knowing that, and I try to communicate to my students that a large part of conducting research is getting it wrong, making mistakes, and then attempting to figure out what can be learned. It is a painstaking process, and one in which we're really still trying to get some sense of what we can know and what is yet to be known. We don't need to have all the answers. We do need to ask good questions and to keep our minds just open enough to abandon what is clearly not working.

So when I discuss zombies, whether in the form of ego depletion, the process and outcome of the Stanford Prison Experiment, any of a number of findings on subliminal priming and implicit attitude tests, I do so in order to make sure that my students have the other side of the story: our science is far from perfect. We sometimes appear to have a handle on a phenomenon, only to find out we never did. Sometimes, our colleagues pull one over on us and make it appear as if they found something they never really did. And in due time, we manage to eventually sort it out. The Stanford Prison Experiment is now a cautionary tale. There may be other findings that were more or less artifacts of various questionable research practices. We should not fear these findings, nor should we shy away from confronting the truth and conveying the truth as it becomes available. I'd rather do something other than tell my students that portions of the material in their textbooks are little more than psychobabble that should be (perhaps tentatively, perhaps permanently) dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence. And yet here we are. There are zombies in our field. I seriously doubt there is a full fledged zombie apocalypse, but we should be at least aware of the undead theories and findings that are walking among those findings that are truly alive and well.

Pertinent

Please check Karen Shackleford's latest post if you have a moment. Given what the US has been through the last couple weeks, and what so many on our aching planet have endured for much longer, it is a simple, concise statement. As something of a pop culture enthusiast, I am also interested in the stories our pop cultural artifacts attempt to tell. Whatever else we do with what amounts to our lives, listening to the stories of those who have been truly oppressed should be right at the top of the list. The truth is rarely pretty, often quite raw, and ultimately liberating. It is the truth that lights the darkness. The best storytellers do just that.

The psychology of community theatre

I realize that some will persist in defending Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), even after it has become obvious that the whole thing was a put-on, and is at best a cautionary tale for how not to conduct research. That comes with the territory. What does the SPE tell us that might be even remotely useful? I had been wondering about that, as at some point I need to make some mention of the SPE next time I teach Social Psych. So here the idea I am batting around:

The SPE tells us that if you give some actors a script, a stage, and a bit of direction, they will produce the performance that you as the director expect of them. Yes, some actors may forget a line or two, or decide to improvise. But the ultimate outcome will be little more than a performance that the director intended. At least I know what to expect the next time I go out to see a play. Brilliant. Maybe I'll shout out, "Zimbardo predicted that" when I applaud as the final curtain comes down.

Separating children from their parents is cruel...

...and invites potentially long-term psychological damage. On that point, Dr. LoCicero is correct. I have my doubts that those 27% or so of Americans who are perfectly okay with forcibly removing immigrant children from their parents (often refugees to begin with) would be persuaded by any data or any videos documenting the negative behavioral changes that occur when a child is separated from her or his parents for any significant length of time. We may want to accept the possibility that a significant proportion of that 27% simply get off on cruelty, especially when it is done to those they deem "other" or "less than". I'm more interested in reaching out to those who may have some vague awareness of what the US government's current "zero tolerance" policy is, but who may not quite understand the urgency.