A Challenge to Orthodoxy in Psychology

Thomas Sowell and Social Justice

Bibliographic Data

ID21786293
AuthorsWilliam O’donohue (0000-0001-6679-6310, University of Nevada, Reno), Nina C Silander (0000-0002-5530-7910, North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, corresponding author), Craig L Frisby (0000-0002-4387-3640, University of Missouri), Jane E Fisher (0000-0003-3645-834X, University of Nevada, Reno)
Year2025
Volume20
Issue2
Pages290-307
Publication date2025-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePerspectives on Psychological Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1745-6916 • E-ISSN: 1745-6924
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/17456916231203204
PMID37916981
OpenAlexW4388233657
LanguageEN
References cited68

Psychologists address social-justice problems in their research and applied work, and their scholarly efforts have been influenced by assumptions, constructs, and hypotheses from the political left. Recently, some psychologists have called for increased intellectual and political diversity in psychology, particularly as such diversity may lead to improved problem-solving. As an attempt to increase intellectual diversity in psychology, we review here the scholarship of Thomas Sowell. His work represents a rich source of hypotheses for psychologists’ future research. We focus on his views on the importance of freedom; the extent to which reforms can reduce freedom; the importance of free markets to human flourishing; the role of free markets in producing costs for discrimination; the way spontaneously ordered systems can contain knowledge that can be overlooked in reforms; and the importance of culture and cultural capital. We will also discuss Sowell’s more thoroughgoing economic analyses of problems and solutions and his analyses of contingencies operating on politicians and reformers, as well as his views on conflicts in fundamental visions about human nature and the pivotal role of improvements in minority education

Economic Justice · Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Flourishing · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Vision · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Cultural Differences and Values · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Representations and Identity

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