Open science is now the only way forward for psychology | Science | The Guardian

"Next week the Guardian will be closing the Science Blog Network. We take a final look at the journey psychology has made toward becoming a robust and mature science

When we launched Head Quarters five years ago, psychology was in a pretty dark place. The field was still reeling from the impact of the Diederik Stapel fraud case – the largest perpetrated in psychology and one of the greatest ever uncovered in science. At the same time, a cascade of failures to replicate major findings was just beginning, and as if to add insult to injury, one of psychology’s most prestigious journals published a study claiming to confirm, of all things, the existence of psychic powers. Psychologists were faced with one inescapable conclusion: that the research culture in the field was fundamentally flawed and needed urgent attention. Five years later, the field has taken some big steps forward toward righting the ship. Let’s take a look at some of those improvements. We’re now less likely to fool ourselves and others Scientists are meant to be detectives searching for the truth rather than lawyers cherry-picking the evidence to fit an argument. Unfortunately, psychology has proven to be one of the most bias-prone sciences. Whether unconscious or deliberate, it is all too easy for researchers to selectively report their study results in a way that is influenced by their preconceptions. And because of the noisy nature of evidence in psychological science (humans are messy things, after all), these biases can have a substantial impact on the conclusions that are drawn...."