Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T04:04:30.916Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Sociopolitical insularity is psychology's Achilles heel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2015

Richard E. Redding*
Affiliation:
Fowler School of Law; Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences; Department of Psychology; and College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866. redding@chapman.eduhttp://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/richard-redding

Abstract

Academic psychology has become increasingly non-diverse politically, which skews and impedes social psychological science (as Duarte et al. argue). We should embrace viewpoint diversity, especially since the arguments favoring sociopolitical diversity are identical to those for demographic and cultural diversity. Doing so will produce a more robust, open, and creative psychological science that is informed and tested by a multiplicity of sociopolitical paradigms.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Gross, N. & Fosse, E. (2012) Why are professors liberal? Theory and Society 41:127–68.Google Scholar
Grutter v. Bollinger. (2003) Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003). [Full case name: Barbara Grutter, Petitioner v. Lee Bollinger, et al.] Available at: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/306/case.html.Google Scholar
Inbar, Y. & Lammers, J. (2012) Political diversity in social and personality psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science 7(5):496503.Google Scholar
Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W. & Sulloway, F. J. (2003) Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin 129(3):339–75. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.3.339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jussim, L. (2012a) Liberal privilege in academic psychology and the social sciences. Commentary on Inbar & Lammers (2012). Perspectives on Psychological Science 7(5):504507.Google Scholar
Kahan, D. M. (2013) Ideology, motivated reasoning, and cognitive reflection. Judgment and Decision Making 8(4):407–24.Google Scholar
MacCoun, R. J. (1998) Biases in the interpretation and use of research results. Annual Review of Psychology 49(1):259–87. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.49.1.259.Google Scholar
Page, S. E. (2009) The difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools and societies. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Redding, R. E. (2001) Sociopolitical diversity in psychology: The case for pluralism. American Psychologist 56(3):205–15.Google Scholar
Redding, R. E. (2012) Likes attract: The sociopolitical groupthink of (social) psychologists. Perspectives on Psychological Science 7(5):512–15.Google Scholar
Redding, R. E. (2013) Politicized science. Society 50:439–46.Google Scholar
Tetlock, P. E. (2012) Rational versus irrational prejudices: How problematic is the ideological lopsidedness of social psychology? Perspectives on Psychological Science 7(5):519–21.Google Scholar