Psychology professors across the U.S. are self-censoring their findings surrounding social “taboos,” a recent academic paper says.
Some professors are also worried about job security if they publish unpopular results.
An article titled “Taboos and Self-Censorship Among U.S. Psychology Professors” discussed the association between scholars’ beliefs in taboo empirical claims and the censorship of these findings in their work in order to avoid social or workplace punishment.
The paper began by with 41 “qualitative interviews” to create a list of top “taboos.” These mainly focused on race, sex differences, and transgenderism. For example, one was “Biological sex is binary for the vast majority of people.”