Psychology Research In The Coronavirus Era: A “High Stakes Version Of Groundhog Day”?

By Matthew Warren As the reality of the coronavirus pandemic set in in March, we looked at the work of psychologists attempting to understand how the crisis is affecting us, and to inform our response to it. A few months later, and hundreds of studies have been conducted or are in progress, examining everything from the spread of conspiracy theories to the characteristics that make people more likely to obey lockdown measures. However, some researchers have raised alarm. They’re worried that many of these rapid new studies are falling prey to methodological issues which could lead to false results and misleading advice. Of course, these aren’t new problems: the pandemic comes at the end of a decade in which the field’s methodological crises have really been thrust under the spotlight. But is the coronavirus pandemic causing researchers to fall back on bad habits — or could it lead to positive change for the field? A methodological crisis… The past decade has been a turbulent one for psychology. Researchers have come to realise that a lot of psychological research rests on rather shaky foundations.  A pivotal 2015 study, for instance, attempted to replicate the findings of 100 psychology studies published in three influential journals, finding a significant effect for just 36 of the 97 studies that had originally found a positive outcome. Other replication attempts have cast doubt on well-known findings that appear in many introductory textbooks. And it’s not all...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Feature Health Methodological Source Type: blogs