Psychology Professors Self-Censor Controversial Empirical Conclusions Due to Social Sanctions

Key Quotes

"I'm specifically referring to empirical conclusions in psychology that are sort of off limits for discussion that is these are research questions and empirical conclusions that are out there but they're sort of afraid to talk about them because there are professional or social consequences or repercussions for discussing them."

Clark defines "taboos" in her research as specific empirical conclusions within psychology that are considered off-limits for open discussion. This is due to the fear of negative professional or social consequences that might arise from discussing these research questions or their findings.

"And by self censorship specifically in this paper we define it as a sort of reluctance to share one's own empirical beliefs and I think this is an important distinction because I'm not I I didn't ask people if you say the most controversial thing out loud what would happen to you I say if you say what you truly believe about these topics if you were to say what you believe is empirically accurate about the world regarding this topic how reluctant are you to share that view and also what do you think would happen to you if you did share that view."

Clark distinguishes self-censorship from simply considering public reactions to controversial statements. She defines it as a personal reluctance to express one's own empirical beliefs, focusing on how hesitant individuals are to share what they genuinely believe to be empirically accurate and what they anticipate would happen if they did.

"And for all ten I had people at both at each pole so for every single conclusion some professors were 100 certain it's true and others were 100 certain it's false which is hilarious to me because these are all you know experts they all have phds in psychology they all teach psychology classes at top schools yet what 100 confidence in opposing conclusions."

Clark found it striking that for all ten taboo conclusions, psychology professors held absolute certainty in opposing viewpoints, with some being 100% certain a conclusion was true and others 100% certain it was false. This highlights a significant disagreement among experts in the field on topics considered taboo.

"The reason I think that is because we see that professors who were more certain the conclusions were true reported higher self censorship so why would they self censor their views generally and then be completely honest with me about their views I also had a kind of funny thing in my interviews which were over zoom so I'm looking these scholars in the face you know they know that I'm asking them the question and I know who they are they're anonymous of course when I would ask them like what are these controversial conclusions and then the next thing I ask them is how certain are you that this conclusion is true or false they a lot of them got noticeably kind of nervous you know they didn't want to share their beliefs about these conclusions so I think this is a better estimate than anything else we have."

Clark suggests that her data might underestimate support for controversial conclusions because professors more certain of these conclusions also reported higher self-censorship. She observed nervousness during interviews when professors were asked about their beliefs on these taboo topics, indicating that even in an anonymous survey, honesty might be compromised.

"The broad theme that emerged across virtually everyone was genetic biological evolved or otherwise natural explanations for group differences particularly race differences or sex differences and particularly if it's in a domain where black people are performing worse than white people or women or are performing worse than men so that like broad category like anything that falls under that umbrella is probably a little bit controversial."

Clark identifies a dominant theme among the taboo conclusions discussed by psychology professors: explanations for group differences, especially in race and sex, that are rooted in genetics, biology, or natural causes. This becomes particularly controversial when these explanations suggest poorer performance by Black people compared to White people, or by women compared to men.

"The support for any of these consequences was quite low like I think the highest ever was like around 20 on a 100 point scale so not a lot of support and another thing that I think is really quite telling is I had this question which was how much admiration versus contempt do you hold toward peers who start petitions or social media campaigns to retract papers for moral concerns so these are like retractions because I think the findings are going to cause harm to people and on a zero to 100 scale where zero is maximum contempt and 100 is maximum admiration and respect the modal response was maximum contempt."

Clark reports that support for punitive consequences against academics for expressing controversial views was generally low. More notably, the modal response to a question about admiration versus contempt for peers who campaign to retract papers for moral concerns was maximum contempt, indicating a strong disapproval of such actions among respondents.

"The reason that I think you get that with women is and I wrote a paper that just came out a month or so ago that really digs into this sex issue I think the primary reason is that women are sort of like more risk averse and harm averse and have stronger desire to protect vulnerable people there's even one question in my um in the study that kind of hints at that I think if you look at all of the punishments the question was something like imagine a scholar forwards a biological explanation for a group difference you know so the worst kind of thing that you can do what should happen to that person and it's stuff like they should get fired they should not have leadership positions we should call them names on social media and ostracize them yada yada and we see that women are more supportive of all of the punishments except for one."

Clark posits that women's greater support for punishments related to taboo conclusions stems from being more risk-averse and harm-averse, with a stronger desire to protect vulnerable groups. She notes that women were more supportive of most proposed punishments for scholars presenting biological explanations for group differences, with a notable exception related to graduate students.