There is little that has more sway over our opinions than the charm of “science.” We often hear our friends speak with authority, “Studies have shown…,” or “The research says…” Speaking personally as a former researcher, I find the usage of research as authority to be quite troubling. The following are 8 ways in which psychological science can be dangerously deceptive.

1) The power of prestige

We know psych research is often conducted by “big” universities. These well-established institutions, like the University of California, Harvard, or Princeton, carry with them the charm of competence; the aura of prestige and mystery. When we hear, “A Princeton research team has found…,” it is often hard to deny the validity of what comes next. It may be hard to believe that your take on the questions at hand,could be at least as valuable as that of the person who wrote the article. We can be intimidated and fooled by prestige.

2) It's obvious!--

research often tells us what we already know and tries to persuade us that it's novel.

3) The allure of newness

4) Transforming people into things

5) Overdetermination of outcome

Research may design itself to get the answers it wishes to see. Who doesn't want to "be happy?" A new trend in research is the production of procedures that create . Many of them are not unlike telling a depressed person to smile more and then pointing to their parents, ‘Look, she’s smiling more.” Does that change anything about how she experiences herself??? The research usually doesn't look for ways in which inner experience may contradict the surface outcome. Let's look at a classic trusted instrument: the Beck Depression inventory. Upon investigation, you may notice that the initial measure, the treatment, and results are all alike--they all confirm one another. The inventory includes endorsable statements such as, “I don’t feel sad,” or “I don’t usually feel guilty.” Well, the treatment-- , focuses on encouraging people to change these sorts of self-statements. And the outcome? It poses the same endorsable statements as the initial measure. If there is any change, isn't the individual simply doing as they have been instructed? Has the outcome measure really measured anything?

6) The need for researchers to produce results

7) That which cannot be seen or measured

get’s a bad rap these days but he is worthy of mention as his iceberg metaphor is a beautiful one. He thought that all of our thought and experiences were like the tip of the iceberg peaking above water. And the rest? The mountainous iceberg underwater?...is all mental life that is out of our awareness. To whatever extent this is true, psychological research risks misses almost all of it, emphasizing only the tip of the iceberg. If you don't like the metaphor of the , then think of it in terms of the unknown--all that in the universe which is an utter mystery to us. Science...positivism...is the focus only on what is measurable. With that said, a great scientist will be keenly aware of all that her or she doesn't know. It is the general research trend that can be misleading.

8) You are not a statistic

Most of the ways we can be fooled by research don't have to do with the research itself, but rather ways in which it is presented to us. There is much good that comes from research (which could be the subject of a different blog). I highlight it's deceptive potential precisely because of how dominant it is within our current ways of thinking. I encourage others to question the authority of research and to embrace the authority of their personal capacity for critical thought.