Elegant theories and the problems of social psychology

2025/04/17 by Moin Syed · 1 voice
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cultural Differences and Values #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Behavioral Health and Interventions

paper · doi:10.1080/10463283.2025.2494434

Abstract

This perspective article provides a commentary on the current state of theories used in social psychology, with a particular emphasis on the importance of distinguishing between theoretical models and the statistical models used to evaluate them. A central argument of the essay is that the desire for unrestricted parsimony – often referred to as elegance – creates a problematic inference gap between statistical models and theories. The article is divided into three sections: 1) a brief review of the nature of scientific theory and the elegance criterion in social psychology; 2) three case examples (cultural self-construals, stereotype threat, terror management theory) to illustrate the problems raised; and 3) suggestions for how the field can move forward in a more productive direction.

Citations

• How Computational Modeling Can Force Theory Building in Psychological Science
• The past, present and future of Registered Reports
• Mere Description
• The epistemic and pragmatic function of dichotomous claims based on statistical hypothesis tests
• Social psychology in the age of uncertainty: A tale of three quandaries
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• Cybernetic Big Five Theory
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Discussions

• New paper, "Elegant theories and the problems of social psychology," in which I argue that social psych suffers from large inference gaps, or the distance between theoretical model and statistical te [bsky, 67 points, 3 comments]

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