"What kinds of social psychology experiments are of value to perform?": A reply to Wallach and Wallach (1994).

Abstract

L. Wallach and M. A. Wallach (1994) argued that many hypotheses tested by social psychologists are either near-tautologies or derivable from near-tautologies and thus are of little interest. The authors of this article applaud their concern but find that their conclusions are based on flawed analyses and arguments. Their conceptualization of near-tautology is problematic. Their analysis is based on a misconceived notion of falsifiability and is inattentive to the social context within which scientific knowledge is accumulated. These problems undermine their efforts to offer a careful analysis of social psychological hypotheses. Most alarmingly, their flawed arguments imply a dangerously narrow prescription as to what kinds of social psychology experiments are of value to perform.

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