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The False Promise of Quick-Fix Psychology

It would be hard to find a scientific field that has enjoyed as much mainstream success in the 21st century as social psychology. Social psychologists dominate the TED Talk stage, rack up impressive contracts as consultants to schools and companies, and write book after bestselling book. Their most viral ideas promise to solve some of society’s most pressing problems, often in slickly counterintuitive ways. Amy Cuddy (61 million TED Talk views) argued that by adopting brief, expansive poses—think Wonder Woman with her hands on her hips—women could feel more powerful in the workplace, shrinking stubbornly persistent gender gaps. Angela Duckworth (23 million views) introduced “grit,” a new psychological…

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 Machines can do most of a psychologist’s job. The industry must prepare for disruption

Psychology and other “helping professions” such as counselling and social work are often regarded as quintessentially human domains. Unlike workers in manual or routine jobs, psychologists generally see no threat to their career from advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

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Psychology and Controversy: Points for Discussion

Social and clinical psychologists have been faulted in the past decade for, among other things, placing a disproportionate emphasis on how people behave given the status quo rather than on how society might be altered in order to help make human behavior more fulfilling. Despite widespread criticism, however, most psychologists have generally gone about their professional lives with little alteration.

Psychology's Credibility Crisis: the Bad, the Good and the Ugly

Times are tough for young psychologists. This thought has been rattling around in my head lately because we just finished searching for a new psychology professor at the university where I teach. When I met candidates, I had to ask about their field's troubling replication—and credibility—crisis. I felt as though I was pressing them on some sordid personal matter, like whether alcoholism runs in their families, but the topic is unavoidable. A key test of the validity of any scientific study is whether its results can be replicated by other scientists. Last year a group called the Open Science Collaboration reported in Science that more than half of 100 studies published in major psychology journals had failed that test, despite painstaking efforts to re-create the original experiments.

Psychology’s CAM Controversy

A recent debate that has not received much attention involves professional psychology’s relationship to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). For over half a century, professional psychology has been committed to a scientist-practitioner model.

Some of the Most Controversial Issues in Psychology

Following is a short discussion of some of the most controversial issues in psychology in general, and psychotherapy, social work, and counseling in particular.

The 10 Most Controversial Psychology Studies Ever Published

Controversy is essential to scientific progress. As Richard Feynman said, "science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." Nothing is taken on faith, all assumptions are open to further scrutiny. It's a healthy sign therefore that psychology studies continue to generate great controversy. Often the heat is created by arguments about the logic or ethics of the methods, other times it's because of disagreements about the implications of the findings to our understanding of human nature.

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3 Critical Issues in Clinical Psychology

Interventions and assessments are continually evolving, so it’s critical that practicing psychologists stay abreast of current research. An example of this is the use of a technique called critical incident debriefing, which was once the standard. In it, the victim of a traumatic event recounted and relived the experience over and over again. However, research eventually showed that the technique was not always successful and could even be harmful.

Psych Web

Welcome to Psych Web! This Web site contains lots of psychology-related information for students and teachers of psychology.

PsychCentral

The Internet's largest and oldest independent mental health social network created and run by mental health professionals to guarantee reliable, trusted information and support communities to you....

Psychology.org

A premier education and employment digest. A hierarchical database of links to websites providing information about scientific psychology.