Imprint: 2018
Psychology in Crisis
Author: Brian M. Hughes
Publisher: Palgrave, London
ISBN-10: 1352003007
ISBN-13: 978-1352003000
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From the cover: Throughout the history of psychology, attempting to objectively measure the highly dynamic phenomenon of human behaviour has given rise to an underappreciated margin of error. Today, as the discipline experiences increasing difficulty in reproducing the results of its own studies, such error not only threatens to undermine psychology’s credibility but also leaves an indelible question: Is psychology actually a field of irreproducible science?
In this thought-provoking new book, author Brian Hughes seeks to answer this very question. In his incisive examination of the various pitfalls that determine ‘good’ or ‘bad’ psychological science – from poor use of statistics to systematic exaggeration of findings – Hughes shows readers how to critique psychology research, enhance its validity and reliability, and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the way psychology research is produced, published, and promulgated in the twenty-first century.
This book is essential reading for students wanting to understand how to better scrutinise psychological research methods and results, as well as practitioners and those concerned with the replication debate.
“Psychology in Crisis is an unflinching tour of the challenges of doing psychological science well. Brian Hughes describes six crises facing psychology that could make one think that all is lost. But it is not. At their core, the crises are illustrations of just how hard it is to study human behavior and, simultaneously, why it is worth doing. Hughes closes with a path toward a science that is robust, transparent, and self-skeptical to help accelerate discovery and ensure that psychology meets its potential as a scientific enterprise.” — Professor Brian Nosek, Professor in psychology at the University of Virginia and Executive Director for the Center for Open Science
Contents
Chapter 1 | ‘The Same Again, But Different’: Psychology’s Replication Crisis |
Chapter 2 | ‘Black Is White’: Psychology’s Paradigmatic Crisis |
Chapter 3 | ‘Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width’: Psychology’s Measurement Crisis |
Chapter 4 | ‘That Which Can Be Measured’: Psychology’s Statistical Crisis |
Chapter 5 | ‘We Are The World’: Psychology’s Sampling Crisis |
Chapter 6 | ‘Fitter, Happier, More Productive…’: Psychology’s Exaggeration Crisis |
Chapter 7 | From Crisis to Confidence: Dealing with Psychology’s Self-Inflicted Crises |

Brian Hughes is an academic psychologist and university professor in Galway, Ireland, specialising in stress, health, and the application of psychology to social issues. He writes widely on the psychology of empiricism and of empirically disputable claims, especially as they pertain to science, health, medicine, and politics.