Scientists across disciplines share the same basic scholarly aspirations they seek to describe and explain the world, to predict important events, and to develop applications that benefit their communities. If anything, the social and behavioral sciences have become increasingly dissimilar from the “hard” sciences as they have matured. However, as greater effort and resources have been invested in the study of behavior and groups, research methodologies have tended to become more varied and diverse. This, in turn, would lead to the establishment of precise theories and laws on par with those of physics and astronomy. The assumption here has been that with the passage of time, the research procedures, designs, and measures in disciplines such as psychology and sociology would become more rigorous and refined. Scholars have long believed that as the social and behavioral sciences matured, they would become more like their highly regarded counterparts. In fact, for over half a century, many social and behavioral scientists dutifully adopted the methods and approaches of the physical sciences. The contrasts in success and stature have motivated generations of researchers to strive to be like physicists and chemists. The truth is that the social and behavioral sciences have made substantially less progress than other disciplines in developing precise quantitative theories and efficacious interventions and treatments. The attitude of many researchers in the “hard” sciences is understandable, given the vast differences in the achievements of fields. The bottom line of the condescending editorial was that social scientists are studying important topics they just need help from the real sciences to progress. In 2005, the journal Nature published an editorial entitled “ In praise of soft science” featuring the lead: “‘Hard’ scientists should stop looking down their noses at social scientists, and instead share methods that could help them address pressing societal problems” (p. While much of this patronizing guidance has ebbed, the thinking still persists. The assumption underlying this advice has been that disciplines such as economics and geology would advance more rapidly if they adopted the practices and standards of fields such as chemistry and astronomy. Consequently, the standards used to evaluate scientific research should be tethered to the complexity of the study topic.įor decades, researchers in the physical sciences have implored scientists in other fields to be like them. Many of the benchmarks established by classic work in physical science are not attainable in studies of more complex phenomena. Complexity impedes the measurement of general constructs, the reproducibility of results and scientific reporting, and the general rigor of research. Confirmatory testing, multi-factorial designs, survey methods, large samples, and modeling are frequently needed to study complex social and behavioral topics. The systematic investigation of the world often requires different approaches because of the variability in complexity. In this article, we review the impact of complexity on research design, hypothesis testing, measurement, data analyses, reproducibility, and the communication of findings in psychological science. However, the biggest difficulty of conducting social and behavioral research is the extraordinary complexity of the study phenomena. The study of human behavior is severely hampered by logistical problems, ethical and legal constraints, and funding shortfalls.
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