Under the guise of objectivity, psychologists ignore the fact that understanding the human condition requires engaging beyond the ivory tower. For a more inclusive science, psychologists must lean into the social aspect of being a social scientist.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$59.00 per year
only $4.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Lewis, N. A. Jr. What counts as good science? How the battle for methodological legitimacy affects public psychology. Am. Psychol. 76, 1323–1333 (2021).
Settles, I. H., Jones, M. K., Buchanan, N. T. & Dotson, K. Epistemic exclusion: scholar(ly) devaluation that marginalizes faculty of color. J. Divers. High. Educ. 14, 493–507 (2021).
Neville, H. A. et al. The public psychology for liberation training model: a call to transform the discipline. Am. Psychol. 76, 1248–1265 (2021).
Brydon-Miller, M. Participatory action research: psychology and social change. J. Soc. Issues 53, 657–666 (1997).
Fine, M. & Torre, M. E. Essentials of Critical Participatory Action Research (Essentials of Qualitative Methods) (American Psychological Association, 2021).
Torre, M. E., Fine, M., Stoudt, B. G. & Fox, M. in APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology, Vol. 2. Research Designs: Quantitative, Qualitative, Neuropsychological, and Biological (eds. Cooper, H. et al.) 171–184 (American Psychological Association, 2012).
Roberts, S. O., Bareket-Shavit, C., Dollins, F. A., Goldie, P. D. & Mortenson, E. Racial inequality in psychological research: trends of the past and recommendations for the future. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 15, 1295–1309 (2020).
Prather, R. W. et al. What can cognitive science do for people? Cogn. Sci. 46, e13167 (2022).
Rivas-Drake, D., Camacho, T. C. & Guillaume, C. in Equity and Justice in Developmental Science: Theoretical and Methodological Issues (eds. Horn, S., Ruck, M. & Liben, L.) 161–188 (Academic, 2016).
Lopez, K., Magaña, S., Morales, M. & Iland, E. Parents taking action: reducing disparities through a culturally informed intervention for Latinx parents of children with autism. J. Ethn. Cult. Divers. Soc. Work 28, 31–49 (2019).
Acknowledgements
This commentary is based on a talk T.C. gave at the 2021 Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting, sponsored by the SPARK society, where she discussed strategies for increasing the representation of minoritized populations in cognitive psychology. This work was funded by a National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative, grant number RL5GM118975.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Camacho, T.C. Putting the social in social science. Nat Rev Psychol 1, 435–436 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00091-7
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00091-7
