Falsificationism is not just ‘potential’ falsifiability, but requires ‘actual’ falsification
Social psychology, critical rationalism, and progress in science
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8975735 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Holtz (0000-0001-7539-6992, Leibniz‐Institut fur Wissensmedien / Knowledge Media Research Center Tubingen Germany, corresponding author), Peter Monnerjahn (Philosophy Johannes Kepler University Linz Austria) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 348-362 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8308 • E-ISSN: 1468-5914 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/jtsb.12134 |
| OpenAlex | W2582966393 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 39 |
Based on an analysis of ten popular introductions to social psychology, we will show that Karl Popper's philosophy of ‘critical rationalism’ so far has had little to no traceable influence on the epistemology and practice of social psychology. If Popper is quoted or mentioned in the textbooks at all, the guiding principle of ‘falsificationism’ is reduced to a mere ‘falsifiability’ and some central elements of critical rationalism are left out – those that are incompatible with positivism and inductivism. Echoing earlier attempts to introduce Popper to social psychology by Paul Meehl and Tom Pettigrew, we will argue that a discussing Popper's ideas in more depth could help social psychology to move forward in view of the ‘crisis of confidence’ (Pashler and Wagenmakers, 2012) that has emerged recently in view of the ‘Stapel affair’ and the reports of failures to replicate social psychological experiments in high‐powered replication attempts
Critical rationalism · Epistemology · Falsifiability · Philosophy of science · Positivism · Rationalism · Sociology · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology · Social Representations and Identity
Uniting theory and data
The methods and principles of the natural sciences are not a diet we need to follow
Prediction and Explanation in a Postmodern World
Popper was not a Positivist
Probing the history of social psychology, exploring diversity and views of the social
(When) should psychology be a science
An Invitation to Social Construction
Conjectures and Refutations
The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory
Theoretical risks and tabular asterisks
Replication, falsification, and the crisis of confidence in social psychology
Conjectures and Refutations
Consolations for the Specialist
Appraising and Amending Theories
An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
Normal Science and its Dangers
Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science
The structure of scientific revolutions
The Positivist dispute in German sociology
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes
The Theory of Reasoned Action
Are measurement theories falsifiable, and should we care
The Myth of the Framework
Rationality in psychological research
Attitude-behavior relations
Theory-Testing in Psychology and Physics
Main Trends in Recent Philosophy
Are most published social psychological findings false
Experimental social psychology
On the social psychology of the psychological experiment
Social psychology as history
The test of significance in psychological research
The fallacy of the null-hypothesis significance test
Human use of human subjects
Making social psychology experimental
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |