Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Psychology and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: 3 months

WikiProject Psychology was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 4 September 2013.

Index · Statistics · Log

Psychology articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
Quality	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA		3	4	11			18
FL			1	1			2
GA	6	15	27	69		10	127
B	29	187	309	311		93	929
C	28	335	1,088	1,921	1	446	3,819
Start	6	166	853	3,291		2,267	6,583
Stub		6	120	1,355	1	1,856	3,338
List	7	11	47	100	1	10	176
Category					2,966		2,966
Disambig					30		30
File					36		36
Portal					100		100
Project					23		23
Template					227		227
NA		7	44	152	714		917
Other					160		160
Assessed	76	730	2,493	7,211	4,259	4,682	19,451
Unassessed			1	12		397	410
Total	76	730	2,494	7,223	4,259	5,079	19,861
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 71,260			Ω = 4.81

Shortcut

WT:PSYCHOLOGY

Requested move at Talk:Autism spectrum disorders in the media#Requested move 9 July 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Autism spectrum disorders in the media#Requested move 9 July 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject.
— Urro^{[talk][edits]} ⋮ 19:29, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Closed now. Move request passed: now under Autism in popular culture. Oolong (talk) 14:34, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Myers-Briggs

Hello, there is a lenghty debate on Talk:Myers–Briggs Type Indicator about the tone of the article. And yes, the MBTI has its flaws but I personally think it is exaggerated to describe it as pseudoscientific in the very first sentence of the lead. Vells (talk) 12:23, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Social experiment, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
_{Delivered by — MusikBot ^talk 00:05, 12 August 2024 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team}[reply]

Request for opinions regarding Dasein article

This is a request for opinions in an active dispute at Talk:Dasein#Removal of wording about earlier usage (regarding whether to restore the removed wording). Additional summary information is posted at WikiProject_Philosophy. -- HLachman (talk) 16:36, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New Open Encyclopedia of CogSci

Worth integrating somehow (CC-BY): the newly relaunched Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science – SJ + 18:45, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Need help expanding new page about Teen Mental Health Crisis

I seek help expanding this newly created article about the ongoing Teen mental health crisis. It is currently a stub, and I think further expansion should be handled by experts. I believe this is an important topic. Amayorov (talk) 21:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

an educational resource

i reacently found a website (started by a social worker academic) which is a database of freely available, open source social work textbooks on every course a social worker would need to take from entry all the way to an advnced practice degree. will be useful for building Wikipedia articles. also please spread the word if any social workers you know would benefit. URL: https://opensocialwork.org/textbooks/ RJJ4y7 (talk) 12:53, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Myers–Briggs Type Indicator has an RfC

Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Vells (talk) 06:10, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Check your priority ratings

An editor first labeled Legality of cannabis as top-importance for this group, and after I removed the rating, has changed it to high-importance. Please decide for yourselves how you'd like to have it assessed.

I've seen a couple of editors (usually newer folks) "upgrade" their favorite subjects, perhaps in the mistaken belief that this will result in more editors working on the articles. I specifically suggest taking a look at what's in Category:Top-importance psychology articles and Category:High-importance psychology articles. I think you may be surprised to discover that, e.g., Ghetto has been rated of top importance to this group, and 1950s American automobile culture is supposedly of high importance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Request for help: ABA

Hi, the Wikipedia entry on Applied Behavior Analysis has been the cause of endless disagreement. From my perspective, it is currently written in a way that blatantly aims to minimise the controversy and makes it look as legitimate as possible - most notably in the lede. Numerous editors have brought this up and tried to fix it, but others have persistently reverted all such changes and dismissed the criticisms raised on the talk page.

I attempt to initiate a resolution process for this last year, but it was closed after three days because I didn't see that additional details had been requested (having not been tagged). Nothing has ever been resolved, and more editors have come along since to flag up the exact same problems.

This could really do with attention from more people with a grounding in psychology - preferably anyone with an understanding of behaviourism and why it's controversial - but it shouldn't necessarily require any specialist knowledge to see where the article falls short of our encyclopaedic ideals, I don't think.

Any input welcome. Thanks! Oolong (talk) 14:55, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Oolong, I think that most of our autism-related articles are in poor condition, and that unfortunately that reflects confusion in the real world about what autism is. For example, the stereotype says that autistic people have difficulty figuring out how other people is feeling, except that some say that their problem is being too good at it, so every response from a neurotypical person is overwhelming. Also, I've been reading that even the "gold standard" tests can't reliably differentiate between autism and anxiety, or autism and the side effects of antipsychotic drugs. So our articles are weak and confused, in part because the state of science is in flux. As a result, I have low expectations for these articles.

I took a look at the ABA article. The end result is that I couldn't figure out what it actually is. While skimming down the page, I had in mind a real-world situation. I know a young woman who has multiple disabilities, including autism, and who has a dangerous behavior problem: She runs up to adult men that she doesn't know and hugs them.

So as I was looking through the article, I was trying to find some section that talks about what actually happens in ABA to address a truly problematic behavior. For example, do they sit in an office and talk about why it's rude to hug strangers? Do they walk around the grocery store and practice keeping their hands to themselves? Do they substitute behaviors, perhaps teaching her to politely introduce herself and then offer to shake hands instead of hugging total strangers with no warning? There is a whole lot in the article that seems very theoretical and abstract, but nothing that says what actually happens, even in the Applied behavior analysis#Methodologies developed through ABA research section.

I think that providing clear, simple examples of current practice would help a lot, because simple examples help people know what it is. I suspect that a lot of people have read on social media said that ABA used violent punishments, so it's evil, and that's all they know. The social media post probably left out the fact that aversive punishment was typical in the previous century (i.e., not in the current decade). So armed with this partial and biased piece of information, you would naturally expect the Wikipedia article to vilify ABA completely (or at least as much as an article like Lobotomy vilifies that treatment from the previous century). And it doesn't, so the Wikipedia article must be bad!

Except: maybe instead of more comment about ABA being evil, maybe what we need is more education about what ABA actually is and does in practice today. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're certainly right about most of our autism articles being in poor condition, and that the problems with the ABA entry go much deeper than the problem of it being written from a blatantly pro-ABA perspective!

But your suggestion that 'people have read on social media said that ABA used violent punishments, so it's evil, and that's all they know' is way off-base, I'm afraid. It would be great if you could look at what's actually being said in the Talk page on the article.

To take one key paragraph, here's what the entry's lede says about the controversies:

ABA is considered controversial within the autism rights movement due to a perception that it emphasizes normalization instead of acceptance, and a history of, in some forms of ABA and its predecessors, the use of aversives, such as electric shocks.

Nearly every part of this is misleading, without being technically untrue. It’s considered controversial because it is objectively controversial, within the autism rights movement and also among scientists, parents and practitioners due to a generally correct perception that it emphasizes normalization instead of acceptance, and a history of, in some forms of ABA and its predecessors, the use of aversives, such as electric shocks, among many other reasons, mostly relating to current practice.

The lede also features a bizarrely out-of-place and under-sourced list of alleged applications of ABA, very few of which are mentioned again except in the same list repeated again lower down... Oolong (talk) 15:29, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or maybe not? Nothing is controversial because it's controversial. That's a tautology.

As for "normalization" (Do you mean something like masking? I usually think of "normalizing autism" as meaning that neurotypicals get used to autistic people existing in public, rather than autistic people conforming to neurotypical expectations), if you think about the young woman I described, we actually do need to "normalize" her behavior, or at least change it to something less dangerous. If we don't, either she's going to end up in the arms of a sexual abuser, or she's going to injure someone. (She doesn't gently "offer" a hug; she runs up to strangers and grabs them.) People should not be thinking "Oh, no, don't normalize her behavior; it's inherently bad to make an autistic person behave like a neurotypical person". They need to be saying "Yeah, her stimming is completely harmless, but this thing where she runs into the arms of total strangers has got to be stopped before she knocks someone over – or worse".

I wonder if you could save me some time by making a quick list of broad reasons why ABA is disliked. I've already got these:

teaching Autistic people to behave like neurotypical people is not compatible with autism acceptance
some past practices were physically violent

What else goes on the list? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:11, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say it's controversial because it's controversial. I said it's considered controversial because it is, in point of fact, controversial. Quite different!

What is the word 'considered' doing in there? It implies there's some dispute about whether it's controversial.

Here's a piece on autism and normalisation that might be helpful in understanding its usage here. It is a little confusing that it's used to refer to two separate and contradictory things. Might be better to rephrase that bit, along with everything else.

Here's a quick summary of why ABA is controversial:

Many who have experienced it describing it as a kind of systematised abuse. It is also notably controversial among psychologists: several meta-analyses have failed to find significant evidence of any lasting benefit; grave concerns have been expressed about the systematic failure of researchers to investigate likely long-term harm; studies have overwhelmingly been authored by researchers with undisclosed conflicts of interest, likely resulting in substantial publication bias and motivated reasoning. Much of the work that initiated the field was unethical on a scientific and human level, conducted by some of the same people who pioneered pseudoscientific conversion therapy for gay people. ABA itself is sometimes described as conversion therapy for autistic people.

One of the USA’s major professional bodies for ABA spent many years taking money from the Judge Rotenberg Center — which gained international notoriety (and UN condemnation) for its systematic use of electric torture machines on disabled children — and inviting its representatives to give talks at their conferences defending these practices.

Let me know if you need citations for all that. Oolong (talk) 15:26, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no dispute over whether ABA is controversial. The word controversial means debated or disputed or thing people disagree about. There is no controversy over whether ABA is controversial. Every person who knows anything about ABA knows that people disagree about it. The controversy is over whether ABA is bad, not over whether or not people disagree about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...which is why 'considered controversial within the autism rights movement' is a dishonest framing. Oolong (talk) 21:20, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Talk page for further discussion of this exact point. Oolong (talk) 21:24, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for helping a bit with this. Obviously the change you've made - similar to ones previously made by myself and others - is just one of the many changes needed to bring this article (especially its intro) anywhere near to neutrality!

Relatedly, I have an article coming out in Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, probably tomorrow, on 'Autism, Wikipedia and Epistemic Injustice', describing (among other things) my struggles to improve this and related articles in any kind of sustained way... Oolong (talk) 12:22, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When there are serious differences of opinion in the real world, then I generally find that a long series of small changes is the most successful approach. A massive re-write usually results in a massive reversion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:03, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. I made a series of fairly small changes, after much discussion, in early 2022. Nearly all were undone without any discussion when I came back a couple of months ago. The bigger problem with this page in particular is a small number of editors who are clearly dedicated to portraying ABA in the best possible light.

In any case, there is certainly a case for major rewrites being done as major rewrites when necessary, but it's not something I have the energy for myself. Oolong (talk) 12:58, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Recent major additions to Psychoanalysis

Hey—I just wanted to give a heads-up about a lot of recent additions to Psychoanalysis that I don't feel comfortable fully evaluating, but might do with more eyes on it from folks that do. Cheers! Remsense ‥ 论 11:36, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Repressed memory and dissociative amnesia

Hi, I am currently coming up against a lot of resistance to updating the repressed memory article. I can see from reading the archives, that I am one of many, many people with specialised knowledge in this area who have contributed a lot of time and energy to present evidence in an effort to try to get the article to reflect the contention in the literature. Multiple attempts have also been made to bring in the research on dissociative amnesia.

As the article currently reads, it states that the idea that memories can be unavailable for a period of time is scientifically discredited. I have spent a considerable amount of time tidying up the article and providing evidence to support the changes that will being it up to date, but I am shut down each time. A read of the archived talks shows that many people have responded to calls for evidence only to also be shut down. I have had my edits reversed, and have responded to the legitimate criticisms but have been accused of edit warring amongst other things. The research I have provided from the DSM-5, the American Psychological Society and various reputable journals have also been rebutted and questioned as being pseudoscience.

There are a couple of editors who seem to have a lot of knowledge about Wikipedia, but little understanding of scientific literature and are using editorial processes to shut down the changes. Given that those who may search for 'repressed memory' if dissociative amnesia remits see the link to Wikipedia second in the search results, it is important that the information reflects up to date research and is linked to dissociative amnesia. I also imagine Wikipedia does not want to be used as a vehicle to spread misinformation/disinformation, but this is absolutely what is happening at the moment.

Would really appreciate any advice or support. NpsychC (talk) 23:40, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You could've posted a brief pointer to the ongoing talk page discussion. Unfortunately, you've instead attempted to poison the well by casting aspersions and accusations of bad faith against other editors at the point of origin. Suffice it to say, after reading the your additions and the discussion, characterizations by others such as the additions being Poorly cited and written like your own essay, that they are extrapolating from [...] sources to make claims about Repressed memory which are simply not present in the citations, and that You need higher-level evidence that summarizes all the relevant studies are all clearly the case. Remsense ‥ 论 23:47, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your advice about using a pointer next time. As stated, I took on board the criticisms you have outlined, and responded. You may be referring to my first edit which I admitted was inadequate, I just assumed from the information in the introduction that the page was largely dormant. This was a mistake on my part and I admit that I did not have gone about it in the right way initially but cannot see how trying to bring to light concerns about editorial process is casting aspersions and accusations of bad faith. I am trying to have a conversation about the scientific literature on which the page relies. Further edits are in line with research and take into account the criticisms put to me by the editors. Can you explain what higher level evidence that summarizes the evidence, if not a systematic review? There are a lot of assertions in the article currently that do not have anywhere near this level of evidence. I am trying to replace the bias of the article with a neutral point of view and am genuinely confused by how much resistance I am experiencing. NpsychC (talk) 00:10, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is currently at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Repressed memory. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Joker persona" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Joker persona has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 October 9 § Joker persona until a consensus is reached. -- 65.92.246.77 (talk) 22:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for The Nightmare

The Nightmare has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 15:49, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Heterosexual relationships among LGBTQ people#Requested move 26 October 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Heterosexual relationships among LGBTQ people#Requested move 26 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Web-julio (talk) 06:52, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata and social sciences

Hi, I am trying to contribute on Wikidata around social sciences themes. I started to list relevant properties here : Wikidata:Wikidata:WikiProject Wikidata for research/Data models/Social science results Feel free to suggest others, for example properties that may help generate infoboxes.

Jeanne Noiraud (talk) 20:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Consciousness

Consciousness has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 16:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]