Ten Taboo Topics Dividing Psychologists

Some smart people among the authors.

link

The most taboo conclusions in psychology?:

1. “The tendency to engage in sexually coercive behavior likely evolved because it conferred some evolutionary advantages on men who engaged in such behavior.”
2. “Gender biases are not the most important drivers of the under-representation of women in STEM fields.”
3. “Academia discriminates against Black people (e.g., in hiring, promotion, grants, invitations to participate in colloquia/symposia).”
4. “Biological sex is binary for the vast majority of people.”
5. “The social sciences (in the United States) discriminate against conservatives (e.g., in hiring, promotion, grants, invitations to participate in colloquia/symposia).”
6. “Racial biases are not the most important drivers of higher crime rates among Black Americans relative to White Americans.”
7. “Men and women have different psychological characteristics because of evolution.”
8. “Genetic differences explain non-trivial (10% or more) variance in race differences in intelligence test scores.”
9. “Transgender identity is sometimes the product of social influence.”
10. “Demographic diversity (race, gender) in the workplace often leads to worse performance.”

All of these except for 3 are, IMO, very likely to be true. 3 is false, in my experience. But it could be true,...and I am going on my rather limited experience there. It would certainly be weird if all the pressure and all the mechanisms that have been set up with respect to hiring and promotion didn't at least even things out...but, again: possible.

   Well, 10 could be false. I'd have just guessed that it had little effect. As the term "diversity" is used currently, there's no reason to think it will lead to better performance with respect to most tasks...but I didn't think it would lead to worse performance. Haven't read the paper, though, and don't know what 'often' comes to here.