Social Science Biases and Collective Knowledge

Abstract

Understanding, investigating, and adapting to the biases inherent in social science research is the best path toward accumulating and advancing social science knowledge. Social science faces many categories of bias, from those stemming from unrepresentative researcher demographics to those based on research practices and incentives. Each has implications for research practices, but none makes social science impossible. Scholars face inherent challenges larger than those of natural scientists, with more disagreement on the most important biases to address and the kinds of research necessary to do so. But there are important advances in scholars’ self-understanding that can serve as the basis for our future progress.