Problematic Images of Science in Undergraduate Psychology Textbooks: How Well Is Science Understood and Depicted?

Abstract

Psychology is one of the most popular undergraduate majors in American universities, despite the fact that the field has many unsettled questions about how to best progress as a science or even if it qualifies as a science (Lilienfeld, 2012; O’Donohue, 2013). Lack of clarity and accuracy in describing what science is and psychology’s relationship to science are at the heart of these issues. To better understand how science is defined and its relationship to science is depicted, 30 undergraduate textbooks were examined and analyzed. It was predicted that authors would be inconsistent in their characterization of science. Additionally, it also was predicted that key controversies regarding the structure and methods of science would simply be ignored and support was also found regarding this prediction as well. This suggests that the textbook definitions of science were often simplistic. This analysis underscores the importance of a more consistent, accurate, and detailed presentation of the science for undergraduate psychology students, as well as the need for further scholarship in this area. S C I E N T I F I C A B S T R A C T Psychology is one of the most popular undergraduate majors in American universities, despite the fact that the discipline still has many unsettled questions regarding fundamental philosophical and methodological issues (Lilienfeld, 2012; O’Donohue, 2013). These issues may be associated with a lack of clarity regarding an accurate conception of science and the nature of the relationship between psychology and science with respect to these controversies. Kuhn (1972) has suggested that scientific paradigms are transmitted in textbooks. To understand how the scientific status of psychology is depicted, 30 undergraduate textbooks were examined. It was hypothesized that across textbooks authors would be inconsistent regarding how science was characterized. This hypothesis was tentatively supported. It also was hypothesized that key controversies in metascience simply would be ignored and support was also found regarding this hypothesis suggesting that the proffered definitions of science were often simplistic. This analysis underscores the importance of a more consistent, accurate, and detailed presentation of the science for undergraduate psychology students, as well as the need for further scholarship in this area. This article was published August 20, 2018. William O’Donohue and Brendan Willis, Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno. This article is part of the special section “Heterodox Issues in Psychology.” The guest editor for this section is Scott O. Lilienfeld. The authors have made available for use by others the data that underlie the analyses presented in this article (see O’Donohue & Willis, 2017), thus allowing replication and potential extensions of this work by qualified researchers. Next users are obligated to involve the data originators in their publication plans, if the originators so desire. Copyright of this manuscript belongs to the author(s). The author(s) grant(s) the American Psychological Association the exclusive right to publish this manuscript first, identify itself as the original publisher, and claim all commercial exploitation rights. Upon publication, the manuscript is available to the public to copy, distribute, or display under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. Please use APA’s Online Permissions Process (Rightslink®) at http://www.apa.org/about/contact/copyright/seek-permission.aspx to request commercial reuse of this content. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Brendan Willis, Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, 1664 North Virginia Street Reno, NV 89557-0296. E-mail: brendanwillis@nevada.unr.edu Archives of Scientific Psychology 2018, 6, 51–62 © 2018 The Author(s) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/arc000004