Many Psychology Findings Not as strong as Claimed, Study Says

by Benedict Carey 

The past several years have been bruising ones for the credibility of the social sciences.  A star social psychologist was caught fabricating data, leading to more than 50 retracted papers.  A top journal published a study supporting existing of ESP that was widely criticized.  The Journal of Science pulled a political science paper on the effect of gay canvassers on voters' behavior because of concerns about faked data.  Now, a painstaking yearslong effort to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals has found taht more than half of the findings did not hold up when retested....Read More.