The Myth of the Need for Diversity Among Subjects in Theory-Testing Research: Comments on "Racial Inequality in Psychological Research" by Roberts et al. (2020).
Roberts and colleagues focus on two aspects of racial inequality in psychological research, namely an alleged underrepresentation of racial minorities and the effects attributed to this state of affairs. My comment focuses only on one aspect, namely the assumed consequences of the lack of diversity...
| Publicado en: | Perspectives on Psychological Science Vol. 19; no. 3; pp. 577 - 580 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | commentary Journal Article |
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Sage Publications Inc.
May2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=177473316&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 177473316 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 17456916 1WQQ jtl: Perspectives on Psychological Science issn: 17456916 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May2024 vid: 19 iid: 3 pid: 20732 pub: Sage Publications Inc. place: Thousand Oaks, California artinfo: ui: 177473316 177473316 177473316 10.1177/17456916241236165 177473316 ppf: 577 ppct: 3 formats: tig: atl: The Myth of the Need for Diversity Among Subjects in Theory-Testing Research: Comments on "Racial Inequality in Psychological Research" by Roberts et al. (2020). aug: au: Stroebe, Wolfgang affil: University of Groningen sug: subj: Race Factors Research Subjects Theory Validation Stress, Psychological Minority Groups Causality Humanism Hypothesis Philosophy External Validity ab: Roberts and colleagues focus on two aspects of racial inequality in psychological research, namely an alleged underrepresentation of racial minorities and the effects attributed to this state of affairs. My comment focuses only on one aspect, namely the assumed consequences of the lack of diversity in subject populations. Representativeness of samples is essential in survey research or applied research that examines whether a particular intervention will work for a particular population. Representativeness or diversity is not necessary in theory-testing research, where we attempt to establish laws of causality. Because theories typically apply to all of humanity, all members of humanity (even American undergraduates) are suitable for assessing the validity of theoretical hypotheses. Admittedly, the assumption that a theory applies to all of humanity is also a hypothesis that can be tested. However, to test it, we need theoretical hypotheses about specific moderating variables. Supporting a theory with a racially diverse sample does not make conclusions more valid than support from a nondiverse sample. In fact, cause-effect conclusions based on a diverse sample might not be valid for any member of that sample. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: commentary Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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