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Cited by 746Psychology Research and BibliometricsCultural Differences and ValuesAcademic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology

Toward a psychology of Homo sapiens : Making psychological science more representative of the human population

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Rad, Mostafa Salari, Martingano, Alison Jane, Ginges, Jeremy·2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1721165115PMC PMC6233089

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Abstract

Two primary goals of psychological science should be to understand what aspects of human psychology are universal and the way that context and culture produce variability. This requires that we take into account the importance of culture and context in the way that we write our papers and in the types of populations that we sample. However, most research published in our leading journals has relied on sampling WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations. One might expect that our scholarly work and editorial choices would by now reflect the knowledge that Western populations may not be representative of humans generally with respect to any given psychological phenomenon. However, as we show here, almost all research published by one of our leading journals, Psychological Science , relies on Western samples and uses these data in an unreflective way to make inferences about humans in general. To take us forward, we offer a set of concrete proposals for authors, journal editors, and reviewers that may lead to a psychological science that is more representative of the human condition.

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  • Over 70% of the papers sampled supplied no clear information about participants' race, SES, or language.

    “Indeed, despite a near-universal tendency to report empirical results in generic terms, over 70% of the papers we sampled supplied no clear information about participants' race, SES, or language, consistent with other findings in the literature (48).”

    From Generic language in scientific communication (2019) · cites this paper as [48]

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Authors
Rad, M. S., Martingano, A. J., & Ginges, J.
Affiliations
The New School (US)
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
2018-11-05
Volume
115
Issue
45
Pages
11401-11405
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1721165115
PMC
PMC6233089
OpenAlex
W2900124487
Cited by
746
References
22
Citations by year
2026: 66 · 2025: 93 · 2024: 95 · 2023: 128 · 2022: 101 · 2021: 123 · 2020: 113 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 6
FWCI
85.42
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.pnas.org/site/aboutpnas/licenses.xhtml (vor, 181 d)
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Science Foundation (SES-0962080)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › General Psychology › Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology
Keywords
WEIRD samples, cultural diversity in psychology, cross-cultural generalizability, sampling bias, journal editorial policy, population representativeness
MeSH terms
Cognition, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Developing Countries, Humans, Periodicals as Topic, Psychology, Social, Sex Factors, Bibliometrics, Cultural Diversity, Developed Countries, Editorial Policies

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