Episode 23: Whose psychology is it anyway? Making psychological research more representative
We explore modern psychology’s relationship with race and representation in the latest episode of PsychCrunch.
21 January 2021
By PsychCrunch
In this episode, Emily Reynolds, staff writer at Research Digest, explores modern psychology's relationship with race and representation.
It's well-known that psychology has a generalisability problem, with studies overwhelmingly using so-called "WEIRD" participants: those who are Western and educated and from industrialised, rich and democratic societies.
But how does that shape the assumptions we make about participants of different racial identities or cultures? And how can top-tier psychology journals improve diversity among not only participants but also authors and editors?
Our guests are Dr Bobby Cheon, Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Dr Steven O. Roberts, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.
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Episode credits:
Presented and produced by Emily Reynolds.
Script edits by Matthew Warren.
Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler.
PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler.
Art work by Tim Grimshaw.
Background reading for this episode
Research mentioned in this episode includes:
- How USA-Centric Is Psychology? An Archival Study of Implicit Assumptions of Generalizability of Findings to Human Nature Based on Origins of Study Samples
- Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future
- Toward a psychology of Homo sapiens: Making psychological science more representative of the human population
Other relevant posts from the Research Digest and The Psychologist archives:
- Researchers Assume White Americans Are More Representative Of Humankind Than Other Groups, According To Analysis Of Psychology Paper Titles
- Psychology research is still fixated on a tiny fraction of humans – here's how to fix that
- Which human experiences are universal?
- 'We need to broaden the conversation to institutional bias'
- 'We don't just need warm words, we need actions'
- WEIRD science… Priya Maharaj responds to a piece from our Research Digest blog
- 'I understood when I listened to people's stories'
- 'Without positive action, we risk living in a world that has potential to rob people of their dignity and sense of agency': A collection of articles from recent years on racism in psychology and the psychology of racism
