Going in Many Right Directions,All at Once

Mostly the Right Direction

Many observers apparently think we are going in a good direction. As a field, we are everywhere in policy advice and popular culture. For example, within the National Academy of Sciences’ report-generating arm, its most psychological board—namely, the Board of Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences—has never been busier organizing expert panels to offer evidence-based advice to the government. The Board has produced reports on a variety of topics, including the human subjects Common Rule applied to behavioral and social science, how people learn, ways to encourage sun-safety behavior, examinations of social and behavioral sciences in national security, new approaches for changing behavioral health norms, social aspects of Alzheimer’s disease, and ways to reduce counterfeiting. (See http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/BBCSS/index.htm; truth in citation—I know this because I chair this Board.)

What’s more, the Obama White House listened to a Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (https://sbst.gov/). The Presidential debates mentioned the psychological concept of implicit bias as relevant to police shootings (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/clinton-on-implicit-bias-in-policing/2016/09/26/46e1e88c-8441-11e6-b57d-dd49277af02f_video.html). At least some Washington policymakers respect our field. Of course, many do not (see below).

Beyond policy, psychological science appears regularly in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/psychology-and-psychologists), best-selling books (e.g., Lewis, 2017), TED talks (e.g., https://imotions.com/blog/ted-talks-human-behavior/), and social media. Consumers of popular culture cannot get enough of our field.

Partly because of all this attention, we are also in crisis about credibility—both outside and inside the field. Congress has for decades singled out behavioral sciences for ridicule, from Senator Proxmire’s Golden Fleece Awards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award) to Senator Flake’s Wastebook (2015). The National Academy of Sciences has countered with From Research to Reward (http://www.nasonline.org/publications/from-research-to-reward/). Likewise, the National Science Foundation (2013) has issued a defense of social, behavioral, and economic research.

What’s more, like other sciences, not all our effects replicate, and this casts a shadow. This dilemma has provoked different interpretations (e.g., Open Science Collaboration, Nosek, Aarts, Anderson, & Anderson, 2015, vs. Gilbert, King, Pettigrew, & Wilson, 2016). The debate on the whole is healthy. Of course, scientists are human and can always improve.

Even the harshest scientific critique is painful, but it need not necessarily be personal or destructive. Nevertheless, some critics go beyond scientific argument and counterargument to imply that the entire field is inept and misguided (e.g., Gelman, 2014; Shimmack, 2014). Personally, I would not go so far as to suggest rampant incompetence or carelessness. Even if initially resistant, we as a field eventually welcome new methodological insights that improve our standards (e.g., our current adoption of much that was suggested earlier by Cohen, 1992; Rosnow & Rosenthal, 1989). The recent methodological advances, changing norms, and renewed scrutiny can benefit our science (Nelson, Simmons, & Simonsohn, in press; Shrout & Rodgers, in press). Many proposals are constructive: posting of methods and data, emphasizing statistical power, vetting commentaries and author responses, moving away from one-shot studies, and being explicit about exploratory analyses, among others (e.g., Eich, 2014; Lindsay, 2015).

On the other hand, the crisis sometimes reflects less healthy trends toward mistrust, infighting, shaming, and bullying, especially on uncurated social media, as I have suggested in an APS Observer column (Fiske, 2016). We can separate methodological criticism from personal attack. Even if only a few critics cross the line to inappropriate bullying, their effect creates a chilling, hostile work environment. My call for civility in tone has been mistaken for a rejection of improved methods of open science. That interpretation is wrong, often going hand-in-hand with impugning my (and other people’s) motives (search the Gelman or Shimmack blogs for my name; I prefer not to rehash the personal attacks).

Another mistaken—and troubling—interpretation of my column is that I was trying to use my seniority in the field to silence more junior people (Reviewer 3, December 2016, personal communication; Schmidt, December 2016, personal communication). Apparently, the interpretation is that more established people and journal editors have a vested interest in the problematic status quo and are trying to shut down dissent. As someone who has studied power dynamics and subordinated groups, I find this accusation of my motives to be ironic. But I understand it: Our own research suggests that when powerless people believe that a powerful, cohesive outgroup controls their outcomes, they tend to stereotype the powerful cabal because they see they cannot influence the powerful group (Dépret & Fiske, 1999). Moreover, intergenerational tensions are fueled by older people’s control over resources (North & Fiske, 2012, 2013). If some younger scientists believe that their only available professional outlets are in social media, then something is wrong with the field’s opportunities, and we should address the problem. Shutting down scientific criticism is not my motive.

Another possible source of misinterpretation may come from a different power dynamic—namely, that many junior people feel it is too risky to object to the tone of the online discussions because they would attract attention and become their target (Reviewer 3, December 2016, personal communication). Indeed, I have received nearly 100 emails from people supporting the APS Observer column and voicing their relief that someone less vulnerable would raise the issue of tone. Many have also expressed feeling threated by cyberbullying. As a result, the voices most able to object to online personal attacks are the more senior ones, so some observers mistakenly infer that this biased sample reflects the underlying age distribution instead of contextual pressures. Again, none of these calls for civility object to online methods forums but to attacks on individuals’ motives, persons, or reputation. Character assassination is not scientific criticism. Ad hominem attack is a practice I (and others) reject as unconstructive and not advancing our science (see the petition for promoting open, critical, civil, and inclusive scientific discourse in psychology; Coan et al., 2017).

Many of the current debates are lively and stimulating for the field of psychological science, a sign we are going in the right direction, though the tone could improve. My lab has recently had a constructive debate that gives me hope and may suggest some models for going forward.

Constructive Debate: Our Experience With Mutually Respectful Engagement

The stereotype content model (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002) proposed that societies sort social groups along two basic dimensions of social cognition: warmth (how friendly and trustworthy) and competence (how capable and effective). We are not the first to suggest these or similar dimensions, which turn out to be robust over time, place, and methods (Fiske, 2015). And we have a reasonable theory for why warmth and competence matter. We thought we had achieved some consensus.

Along come some researchers with what they call a more data-driven approach (Koch, Imhoff, Dotsch, Unkelbach, & Alves, 2016): They generated the to-be-rated groups in a different way and then submitted them to multidimensional scaling, which we had not yet used. Imagine our surprise—and evidently theirs—when they generated other dimensions: agency (dominance), which relates to our competence/status dimension, and beliefs (progressive or conservative), which does not relate to our findings at all. Searching for warmth/communion, which is supposedly the primary dimension, they find it only in the Goldilocks middle—warm groups are not too dominant or subordinate and not too progressive or conservative.

We were dismayed, but not offended. Throughout their research project, the other authors consulted us, often took our advice, cited us when appropriate, and communicated respectfully. After their paper was published, a member of their team visited my lab, and science progressed.

Together, we solved the puzzle in several ways and discovered analysis methods that produce their effect (aggregate) and ours (individual). In addition, we discovered framing manipulations that favor their effect (sociological, distal) and ours (psychological, proximal). Indeed, the teams have joined forces to present these research projects at an international meeting, hoping to illustrate an adversarial collaboration with an outcome that advanced our corner of the science. For the record, lest this positive experience seem unrepresentative and somehow destined to succeed (Reviewer 2, December 2016, personal communication), our lab previously engaged in another adversarial collaboration, also to good effect (Harris, McClure, van den Bos, Cohen, & Fiske, 2007; van den Bos, McClure, Harris, Fiske, & Cohen, 2007).

What It Illustrates About Good Directions: Tribes, Rigor, and Trust

Three notions explain our positive experiences. First, we used our tribes to good advantage, as both defining our respective interests and providing a secure base for exploration. Scientific tribes—whether department areas, national groups, or competing labs—can be divisive, to be sure. When groups split off and defend their turf, the divisions can stifle progress, confine research, and suppress debate. But tribes can also accumulate knowledge, provide affinity, monitor standards, and protect loyal mavericks who want to push the boundaries. To the extent that our respective labs balanced these loyalties and strengths, we could all take risks that paid off.

Rigor is a second principle that aided our adversarial collaboration. Four teams (American, Belgian, and two German) critiqued every design, method, analysis, and result. We were open with each other, shared our hypotheses, and replicated out results; it was open science in miniature among the adversarial collaborators. We balanced this rigor with flexibility that allowed creative ideas, risk taking, and varying methods.

Finally, we built mutual respect and trust. We are all in it to solve the puzzle of discrepancy, not to destroy each other. Trust in other scientists requires the right tone of civility and tolerance, as well as some faith that errors will be self-correcting. Well-placed trust minimizes communication delays, wasted effort at excessive verification, and risking one’s career on unreliable findings. Balance requires flexibility, tolerance, and optimism. Perseverance furthers science.

At the Editor’s Request: Where I’m Coming From

My own career illustrates these goals, I hope. My doctorate is from Harvard University, where I worked with Shelley Taylor, who taught me that the best science is collaborative and fun. My methods teachers were Bob Rosenthal, who taught me that effect sizes matter, and Dave Kenny, who taught me that credible methods are not a rulebook but a toolkit.

My own lab began in the crisis of the late 1970s (bad job market, flashy studies, public criticism—sound familiar?). But I was excited by the then-new field of social cognition, and I braved criticism from both sides (too social, not social enough, too cognitive, not cognitive enough). During that era, Shelley Taylor and I wrote the first edition of Social Cognition (Fiske & Taylor, 1984), which helped define the field and derail my career. (Writing a pre-tenure book is not generally considered a good idea.)

Eventually, with the support of collaborators both national and international, my lab developed a research focus especially on cognitive stereotypes and emotional prejudices at cultural, interpersonal, and neuro-scientific levels. More than 300 publications and many arcane processes later, I was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. My most-cited work—besides that precocious book—includes the continuum model of impression formation, from categories to individuation; the role of power in stereotyping; the discovery of ambivalent sexism; and the battered but robust stereotype content model.

Because I enjoy promoting our field and other people’s work, I’ve always done a lot of editing. I aim to promote cumulative science—the integrative synthesis of progress in the Annual Review of Psychology. In editing Policy Insights from Behavioral and Brain Sciences, I support the aim of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) to promote the usefulness of our science. And at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we the psychologist editorial board members aim to promote the best psychological science of interest to a general audience. All this editorial overview convinces me we are moving in some good directions.

The future rests with the next generation. My graduate students arranged for me to win the University’s Mentoring Award, and international advisees arranged for me to win the Mentoring Award from the Association for Psychological Science. The feeling is mutual; my students are my proudest scientific accomplishment, and along with trustworthy adversarial collaborators, I believe they will lead the field in the right direction.