profitability and psychological phenomena

While most efforts were directed at improving the existing quantitative-experimental methods (e.g., by asking authors to outline the grounds on which they chose a certain sample size or to report effect sizes and Bayes factors), it has also been advised that psychology should move towards more openness and transparency (e.g., by encouraging preregistrations and by sharing analysis plans as well as data and materials Nosek et al., 2015) and that psychological academia should rethink its incentive structure (Lilienfeld, 2017). For instance, the observation that the results of many psychological studies could not be replicated, which lead to the so-called “replication crisis”, has stirred up heated debates about ways of ensuring the quality and reliability of psychological research (Open Science Collaboration, 2015).

In the past years, the current state of (Western) academic psychology has been criticized for various reasons. Nevertheless, we suggest that historical psychology would contribute to making academic psychology a truly universal endeavor that explores the psychology of all humans. Finally, we consider methodological, ideological, and practical pitfalls, which could endanger the attempt to direct more attention toward cross-temporal variation. We begin by outlining the potential benefits of understanding psychology also as a historical science and explore these benefits using the example of stress. We find that more research in the field of historical psychology is required to capture both the similarities and differences between psychological mechanisms both then and now. However, one aspect which has received relatively little attention is the fact that psychological research is typically limited to currently living individuals, while the psychology of the past remains unexplored. In the past years, many debates have been centered around the so-called “replication crisis” and the “WEIRD people problem”. The current condition of (Western) academic psychology can be criticized for various reasons.

Profitability and psychological phenomena