Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology

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Psychology articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	Other	???	Total
FA		3	4	11				18
FL			1	1				2
GA	5	14	27	70			10	126
B	28	179	299	295			88	889
C	28	322	1,073	1,873	1		421	3,718
Start	5	172	861	3,231		1	2,247	6,517
Stub		5	122	1,365			1,871	3,363
List	7	10	47	98	1		10	173
Category					2,895			2,895
Disambig				3	26			29
File					35			35
Portal					100			100
Project					23			23
Template		1			225			226
NA		8	43	145	679			875
Other				1	169			170
Assessed	73	714	2,477	7,093	4,154	1	4,647	19,159
Unassessed			1	13	1		415	430
Total	73	714	2,478	7,106	4,155	1	5,062	19,589
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 70,548			Ω = 4.82

FAR for Conatus

I have nominated Conatus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. - car chasm (talk) 14:50, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Incel Merge discussion

Hello, per point 3 of WP:PM, I am notifying this project of the merge discussion at Talk:Incel. This is based on a just recently closed AfD (see page of incels.is). The AfD closed with a consensus to merge, but since that consensus, I have increased the incels.is a lot in sourcing and content though, so a merge may now not be necessary. 2001:48F8:3004:FC4:48EA:35CE:A536:B342 (talk) 20:35, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Sandbox article for action tendency

I am currently composing a draft article for the concept of action tendency, a component of emotion which influences behavior. I am not a psychologist, so I could use some assistance with any formatting, fact-checking, and research synthesis pertinent to the standards of the discipline.

I came across the topic during my graduate studies and felt that further exposition was important to the analysis of various political and social issues, especially as the emotional component has historically been eschewed from the rather quantitative lens of rational choice theory and related explanations for social behavior. Doughbo (talk) 00:55, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

IQ problems

I'd appreciate it if other editors would take a look at Talk:Adragon De Mello, where an editor has been suggesting some IMO inappropriate sources to substantiate the claim of an off-the-charts IQ. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:37, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

An IQ of 400? I think that claim can't be substantiated with any RS and should just be removed. Dawkin Verbier (talk) 06:24, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it was a case of hopeful incompetence – my four year old did something that a normal 16 year old can do; therefore he has four times the average intelligence, which must be an IQ of 400 – but it was the basis for shopping the kid to the media outlets, so it probably needs to be mentioned. I just think it needs to be mentioned as what his father claimed, rather than having any basis in reality. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:28, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Peer review for Elisabeth Geleerd

A peer review has been opened for Elisabeth Geleerd, an article under the scope of this WikiProject, to potentially prepare it for featured article candidacy. Interested editors are invited to participate at the discussion page. Vaticidalprophet 23:03, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Witchcraft: Requested move

There's a discussion about moving the article Witchcraft to Witchcraft (classical) and moving Witchcraft (disambiguation) to Witchcraft instead, at Talk:Witchcraft#Requested move 19 July 2023. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 08:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Family Systems Theory

I hope that there is an editor out there who might be interested in polishing up this draft to submit it for AFC review. Right now, the main space has a redirect at Family Systems Theory that points to the overview article Family therapy. It would be great if either this draft could be improved enough to take the place of that redirect or if the redirect could find a better target article. Thanks for any help you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Freudian psychology

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Freudian psychology. Proposal to delete this redirect because Freud was not a psychologist. Sundayclose (talk) 14:05, 21 July 2023 (UTC) Sundayclose (talk) 14:05, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Free association (psychology) § Psychoanalysis

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Free association (psychology) § Psychoanalysis. Proposal to retitle article to "Free association (psychoanalysis)". An editor has already tried to rename it twice without discussion. Sundayclose (talk) 14:11, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Sociology

Sociology has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 23:27, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Fugue state#Requested move 28 July 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Fugue state#Requested move 28 July 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. SilverLocust 💬 10:22, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Credibility bot

As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Wikipedia:Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 17:29, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Denise Stapley re-nominated for deletion

The article about Denise Stapley has been re-nominated for deletion. I invite you for your input there. Cheers. George Ho (talk) 07:32, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Paul Spector

I'm involved in some editing disagreement about the same user persistently re-inserting the personal website of https://www.usf.edu/arts-sciences/departments/psychology/people/pspector.aspx I don't know a whole lot on this subject. Is he a truly distinguished prominent figure in the field of psychology or is he nothing special? I looked him up on Google Scholars and I do see him cited 12541 times. Graywalls (talk) 23:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC) - Clarification: the personal website in question is paulspector.com not the edu site. I provided the .edu site to identify the owner of the site. Graywalls (talk) 19:53, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

If you look him up on Google.Scholar you will see that his work has been cited more than 109,000 times. If you click the name of his university in his profile, he appears as the most cited person at his university. In a Google search I came across this article by Anne-Wil Harzing who ranks him as 7th among the most influential academics in the field of Business & Management. I also found him in the Amazon bookstore. The links you are deleting are to lists of assessments, organized by topic that are linked to peer reviewed journal articles that are reliable sources. For example, the leadership category first entry is Abusive supervision by Tepper. Click the link and it takes you to Tepper's ResearchGate profile with a button to download the article about the assessment. This website is a useful research tool for people looking for measures.Psyc12 (talk) 11:25, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

It also happens that within the span of articles I have checked, the initial insertion of "Spector, PE" and his website have been from you, or Iss246. Do you have any personal or professional relationship with Paul Spector? Graywalls (talk) 21:57, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Psyc12:, are you related to Psyc12 Spector in anyway or known him in real life? Graywalls (talk) 04:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Graywalls: For context, what page are you editing? I googled Paul Spector and he certainly appears to be fairly prominent. I did some editing on the Roberto Burioni page and included information from his university bio so I don't think there's an issue there per se, however, as the Paul Spector page currently doesn't exist, I'd like to see the page being edited before commenting further one way of the other. Cheers! 𝄞: JohnnyB𝄬 ^{𝅘𝅥𝅮 Sing with me𝅘𝅥𝅮} 09:30, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Graywalls: @JohnnyBflat: Thank you JohnnyBflat. I have been trying to communicate that fact to Graywalls for a few days now. Iss246 (talk) 14:11, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Graywalls: I also replaced Spector's nonworking link on the occupational health psychology page with a working link. He probably changed providers. Iss246 (talk) 14:11, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@JohnnyBflat:, I initially came across a psychology related page in which it included a link to an author's personal website, which I felt wasn't a great source. When I started doing some digging around, I noticed two users were responsible for essentially all of of insertion of paulspector.com into all/essentially all the articles where that site is included. Within one of the subpages in Paul's off-wiki site, I noticed "Dedicated to Steven Eric Spector who taught me about blogging, content marketing, SEO, and Wordpress." on bottom of one of the pages. When I say I don't know a whole lot, I meant it in context of, is Spector's presence in the psychology field truly "world renowned" and such like Stephen Hawking to cosmology and Eistein to math? or is Spector respected, but just an academic within the field? Graywalls (talk) 14:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sundayclose and ParticipantObserver:. Notifying recent participant on spector concerns in different pages. Graywalls (talk) 14:51, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

When user:Graywalls says he/she does not know a lot, it is clear that he/she is not informed about IO psychology. Now Graywalls wants to take back what he/she wrote about not knowing a lot about the field once Graywalls put his/her foot in his/her mouth. Now Graywalls wants to compare Spector to Stephen Hawking as a way to evaluate a contemporary scholar/researcher. Of course, comparing any WP editor to Stephen Hawking (or Einstein) will show that the editor comes up short. Perhaps we should compare Graywalls to Stephen Hawking and Einstein! Why not compare Spector to his contemporaries in the field. The specious comparison to Stephen Hawking shows that Graywalls is editing in bad faith. Iss246 (talk) 15:33, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that these links are giving undue emphasis to a single (very well-cited) scholar and the assessments that that scholar developed. At least for the psychological testing page, the other links are to general repositories of assessments--not those of a single scholar. ParticipantObserver (talk) 19:14, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

The Spector website contains a general repository of assessments with links to the work of many people. The site has a section with his assessments that are frequently used by researchers as you can see if you do a Googlescholar search for them. For example, a search of "work locus of control scale meta" finds this article in a top tier journal that summarizes results from dozens of studies using this assessment.Psyc12 (talk) 20:43, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Psyc12:, what is your personal or professional relationship to Spector, if any? Graywalls (talk) 20:46, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

The caveat is that it's a page where Spector's tests can be purchased for commercial use as well as links to purchase his books within the landing page. Inside Spector's page at https://paulspector.com/category/marketing/, that's where you'll see Dedicated to Steven Eric Spector who taught me about blogging, content marketing, SEO, and Wordpress. which makes me wonder... The insertion of Stevenericspector.com into articles too has been the work of one editor. Graywalls (talk) 19:22, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. This discussion was getting scattered around, and I appreciate the consolidation onto a single page. ParticipantObserver (talk) 19:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

As I noted Spector's webpages are valuable because they are helpful and accessible to readers. Some measures may be commercial but most are not. The website is not deficient if it includes a few commercially available measures. Occasionally a researcher will find that a commercially available measure (e.g., the Beck Depression Inventory) will be helpful if the measure has high validity and is not a dud. But most of the measures on the website are free of charge. Sometimes a creator of a freely available instrument will ask user to let the instrument's creator know that he/she is using it--a minor cost. None of the measures Spector and his colleagues created are commercially available measures and are available at no charge. Picking on this website is a waste of time. Iss246 (talk) 21:02, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@Graywalls:@Iss246: I think “world renowned” in any field would be setting the bar a little too high in regard to vetting sources for Wikipedia. I’ve taken a little time to dig into Paul Spector, and from what I have found so far, he is a well-known and respected academic in his field. He received his PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology in 1975, has authored several hundred papers in that field, and according to Google Scholar has been cited almost 110,000 times. Research.com [[1]] rates him as number 188 on their list of Best Psychology Scientists in the world. That’s no small thing. I haven’t found anything pseudosciencey or fringe about him. He seems pretty legit to me, and I would have no problems using him as a Subject-matter expert on related pages.

Regarding Dedicated to Steven Eric Spector who taught me about blogging, content marketing, SEO, and Wordpress. (which is at the bottom of every page, not just the marketing one), it looks to me like Steven is Paul’s son and that he helped his dad set up his site, hence the dedication. Academics may be experts in their field but can often be helpless when it comes to technology. Steven’s “About” page discusses his expertise with computers. I may be wrong but that’s how it looks to me.

Looking at the Paul Spector website: Graywalls, I get where you’re coming from regarding the possibility of this page being used to sell his books and tests. There is an appearance of marketing and thus I don’t think your request about editor’s relationships with Paul Spector is unreasonable, in case of a potential conflict of interest. I would note, however, that psychologists selling their tests is quite common in that field. I recently finished an internship with my university’s psychology clinic and very, very few of the assessments we used were free, so I don't believe that the Paul Spector site should be disqualified as a source for that reason.

Also, only a few of the links on the Paul Spector site are to Paul Spector’s products. Most of them are to assessments off-site by other psychologists. This is also true of the “Mental Health Assessments” page on the Steven Eric Spector site.

For these reasons, in my opinion, both pages are acceptable for inclusion under “Sources of psychological tests” on the Psychological testing page.

Graywalls, one last thing I’d like to note (and I’m sure you didn’t intend it this way), is that your sentence "Inside Spector's page at https://paulspector.com/category/marketing/, that's where you'll see Dedicated to Steven Eric Spector who taught me about blogging, content marketing, SEO, and Wordpress.. which makes me wonder..." read to me like it was a page marketing Paul Spector’s products. It’s actually a page of blog articles he’s written about marketing in relation to I/O psychology. I just wanted to make sure that was clear to other editors who might have mistaken it as I did. Cheers! 𝄞: JohnnyB𝄬 ^{𝅘𝅥𝅮 Sing with me𝅘𝅥𝅮} 16:12, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

At this point I don't wish to voice an opinion one way or another about how appropriate it is to link Spector's website, but I would like to try to clarify a couple of points. If we're talking about Spector's website, I don't think it's the one linked in the OP by Graywalls, which is a link to Spector's page for his academic position at USF (although I don't mean to speak for Graywalls, and they can correct me if needed). I think the website in question is his personal website: https://paulspector.com/. My second point of clarification is, I don't think a major issue here is whether a psychologist can or should sell tests he/she develops (and that may not have been JohnnyBflat's intention). If that was a problem, no one would have ever heard of David Wechsler. Obviously psychologists are perfectly entitled to sell their tests. I think the issue is whether excessive linking to the psychologist's website is spamming, especially if it might be the psychologist himself who is doing the linking. Again, I only attempt to clarify, not argue the issue one way or another. If others feel that I have misinterpreted something, I would appreciate your comments. Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 17:12, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

@JohnnyBflat:Just some more on background. in all of these articles where paulspector.com exist, initial insertions everywhere were done by Psyc12 or Iss246. We can also see Psyc12 does not answer their relationship to Spector in this discussion here. Finally, there's the discussion User_talk:Iss246#User_Psyc12. When these are all put together, I see strong WP:COI concerns. What initially drew me to this was the presence of "paulspector.com" in an article somewhere and it caught my attention. I started to investigate where else it is found. I connected the "paulspector.com" insertion to just two users. I asked here, because I wasn't sure if his creds were completely blown out of proportion.

So it seems to be cleared up he's legit. However, issues around apparent self-advocacy are WP:COI concerns. We respect sources like New York Times, but imagine one of their journalist shoehorning articles they've written into everywhere they can contextually slip their article into. If such insertion happened by uninvolved editor in a natural way, that's not COI/NPOV issue. If it's done by the author/anyone associated with the author, it is. Do you feel there's no COI related editing occurring with regard to Paulspector.com insertion?. You're correct that the quotation you talked about was on Paul's website. I mentioned it, because, finding a place in prose that's relevant to your website and slipping it in as a reference is a common "content marketing" technique to improve Google rank status. Graywalls (talk) 17:41, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

>If such insertion happened by uninvolved editor in a natural way, that's not COI/NPOV issue. If it's done by the author/anyone associated with the author, it is.

Contrast your statement with the actual guideline at WP:SELFCITE, which begins with Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I was only putting in my observation on a sentence about "content marketing" at paulspector.com, which is the URL that has been getting inserted. In case it has caused you confusions, I am going to make it clear that I'm not saying certain user is certain person. Now, to address your comment. The key being "within reason". Something worth checking out is Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_196#Continuing_UNESCO_COI_issues for a case of otherwise generally credible sources being unnaturally amplified. Graywalls (talk) 05:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

IMO "within reason" should be considered wrt to the article's needs. One self-citation from an expert could be 100% of their contributions, but could still be perfectly reasonable for the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a clear path forward here. From WP:SELFCITE: 'When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion: propose the edit on the article's talk page and allow others to review it.' Iss246 need not insert the text themselves; why not propose it on the talk page instead? ParticipantObserver (talk) 10:42, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Sundayclose, my understanding also is that we’re referring to the personal website, paulspector.com. Regarding excessive linking, I thought we were just talking in the context of the Psychological testing page? However, I see that Graywalls has provided a list of the relevant pages they found, thank you for that, it clears things up a bit. Do you feel there's no COI related editing occurring with regard to Paulspector.com insertion? Graywalls, I’m not saying it’s *not* COI editing, just that it doesn’t *look* like COI editing at first blush. I can certainly see your concerns once you dig down a bit. WhatamIdoing and ParticipantObserver also make good points.

So, the main concern seems to be whether or not Psyc12 is, or is related to, Paul Spector. It seems to me that the fastest way to move forward would be for @Psyc12: to confirm or deny this relationship disclose a COI if it exists. That would certainly make moving forward a lot easier. Outside of that, ParticipantObserver’s last suggestion works for me. I don’t have a problem with the citations on the Psychological testing page and I’m going to make a presumption that Iss246 would be happy with another editor reinserting them, if consensus goes that way. 𝄞: JohnnyB𝄬 ^{𝅘𝅥𝅮 Sing with me𝅘𝅥𝅮} 14:09, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

This is perhaps a minor quibble, but no one is under any obligation to out themself here. Rather, our COI guideline expects editors with a conflict of interest to disclose it. That can be done without exposing the nature of the relationship (e.g. self, student, colleague, spouse, friend, publicist, etc.), and suspected COI editors should not be asked to do otherwise. – bradv 14:31, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

No, you're absolutely right. Thank you for pointing that out. 𝄞: JohnnyB𝄬 ^{𝅘𝅥𝅮 Sing with me𝅘𝅥𝅮} 14:53, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think anyone here expects anyone to out themselves. But it is quite common on Wikipedia for someone to declare a conflict of interest as required by policy, and if Psyc12 has a COI they must declare it. I find it interesting that Psyc12 emerged after 14 months without editing to express an opinion here, and now is nowhere to be found as we are asking whether they have a COI. I'm not pushing one way or another about whether the links to a single website are appropriate, but I am concerned that those links have only been made by two editors. Sundayclose (talk) 14:58, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I have corrected my comment to be more appropriate. 𝄞: JohnnyB𝄬 ^{𝅘𝅥𝅮 Sing with me𝅘𝅥𝅮} 15:00, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

bradv, actually per WP:PE if they're a getting paid, then the nature of their relationship MUST be disclosed. So, a publicist would have to reveal that. Graywalls (talk) 15:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

No, a paid editor must disclose who is paying them, but they are not required to disclose their own identity. Regardless, that is not what is being alleged here.

Frankly, this thread is rapidly approaching harassment, as Psyc12 has not added any such links to mainspace in nearly two years. As they have now been cautioned, any further alleged COI editing can be dealt with if and when it continues. In the meantime, the articles can be evaluated and cleaned up based on their content, not their contributors. – bradv 15:28, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that there is anything approaching harassment. We are simply discussing whether one of only two editors who has added multiple links to a website might have COI, an editor who has expressed an opinion here after 14 months of not editing. That is all within policy. And the guidelines on COI, by the way, apply for COI even if it is not paid. It is not harassment to ask Psyc12 if they have any COI. That request is often made on Wikipedia. Sundayclose (talk) 15:43, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with @Bradv. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

I have no conflict of interest here. I inserted references to what I felt was useful content in the context of particular articles. Others are free to disagree and delete them or replace them with something else. I agree with Bradv that the focus should be on the content and whether citations/links make significant contributions to each article. Where editors disagree, discussion to consensus is the reasonable way forward. I still keep track of what is going on with articles I edited in the past going back to 2013, but I rarely contribute anymore because I got tired of the bickering and personal attacks. Psyc12 (talk) 15:52, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, Psyc12. I agree the focus should be on content. I think now that you have responded we can keep that focus. Sundayclose (talk) 16:02, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. The Spector websites, although they have the "dot com" imprint, are noncommercial. Underlining the abovementioned focus on content, the Spector websites are service websites that help researchers, practitioners, students, and the educated public to learn about and get access to available tests and scales. Each website reminds me of an efficient central switchboard with its organized links. Again, I underline that the websites provide a service and are noncommercial. Iss246 (talk) 18:05, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

That would be a great argument to make on the talk page of the article in question, to try and establish consensus. But there are at least three editors who have disagreed with their inclusion, and per the above discussion you should seek consensus before re-inserting the links. ParticipantObserver (talk) 15:44, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

And when referencing subject area expert's self published contents, I believe such should be a fall back when proper second sources are not available. When other proper sources are available, there's no reason to piggyback paulspector.com Graywalls (talk) 20:43, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:National identity#Requested move 12 August 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:National identity#Requested move 12 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 08:19, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Request for Comment on Polyvagal theory Talk page

Hi, I just wanted to let you all know that there’s a Request for Comment taking place here that concerns a discussion that seems relevant to the interests of this particular WikiProject. The topic of the RfC concerns the characterization of polyvagal theory in that article. Thanks for your attention. Ian Oelsner (talk) 00:13, 26 August 2023 (UTC)