We are conducting psychology research based on the following assumptions: 1) psychology is an important area to understand if you want to improve the world 2) it is possible to make progress in understanding the human mind 3) the current field of psychology lags behind its potential 4) part of the reason psychology is lagging behind its potential is that it has not completed the relevant early stage science steps 5) during Leverage 1.0, we developed some useful tools that could be used by academics in the field to make progress in psychology.
Assumptions 2) and 5) are based on our experience in conducting psychology research as part of Leverage 1.0. The next step will be to test these assumptions by seeing if we can train academics on a couple of the introspection tools we developed and have them use them to conduct academic research.
Assumptions 3) and 4) are something we have come to believe from our investigations so far into existing psychology research and early stage science. We are currently very uncertain about this and so further study on our part is warranted.
What we are trying to accomplish is to further the field of psychology, initially by providing tools that others in the field can use to develop and test new theories. The hope is that we might make contributions to the field that would help it advance. Contributing to significant progress in psychology is, of course, a very speculative bet but, given our views on the importance of understanding psychology, one that still seems worth making.
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have further questions.
Greater knowledge of psychology would be powerful, but why should we expect the sign to be positive, instead of say making the world worse by improving propaganda and marketing?
Thank you for the question; this is an important topic.
We believe that advances in psychology could make improvements to many people’s lives by helping with depression, increasing happiness, improving relationships, and helping people think more clearly and rationally. As a result, we’re optimistic that the sign can be positive. Our past work was primarily focused on these kinds of upsides, especially self-improvement; developing skills, improving rationality, and helping people solve problems in their lives.
Leverage 1.0 thought a lot about the impact of psychology research and came to the view that sharing the research would be positive. Evaluating this is an area where it’s hard to build detailed models though so I’d be keen to learn more about EA research on these kinds of questions.
Hi casebash,
We are conducting psychology research based on the following assumptions:
1) psychology is an important area to understand if you want to improve the world
2) it is possible to make progress in understanding the human mind
3) the current field of psychology lags behind its potential
4) part of the reason psychology is lagging behind its potential is that it has not completed the relevant early stage science steps
5) during Leverage 1.0, we developed some useful tools that could be used by academics in the field to make progress in psychology.
Assumptions 2) and 5) are based on our experience in conducting psychology research as part of Leverage 1.0. The next step will be to test these assumptions by seeing if we can train academics on a couple of the introspection tools we developed and have them use them to conduct academic research.
Assumptions 3) and 4) are something we have come to believe from our investigations so far into existing psychology research and early stage science. We are currently very uncertain about this and so further study on our part is warranted.
What we are trying to accomplish is to further the field of psychology, initially by providing tools that others in the field can use to develop and test new theories. The hope is that we might make contributions to the field that would help it advance. Contributing to significant progress in psychology is, of course, a very speculative bet but, given our views on the importance of understanding psychology, one that still seems worth making.
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have further questions.
Greater knowledge of psychology would be powerful, but why should we expect the sign to be positive, instead of say making the world worse by improving propaganda and marketing?
Hi Casebash,
Thank you for the question; this is an important topic.
We believe that advances in psychology could make improvements to many people’s lives by helping with depression, increasing happiness, improving relationships, and helping people think more clearly and rationally. As a result, we’re optimistic that the sign can be positive. Our past work was primarily focused on these kinds of upsides, especially self-improvement; developing skills, improving rationality, and helping people solve problems in their lives.
That said, there are potential downsides to advancing knowledge in a lot of areas, which are important to think through in advance. I know the EA community has thought about some of the relevant areas such as flow-through effects and how to think about them (e.g. the impact of AMF on population and the meat-eater problem) and cases where extra effort might be harmful (e.g. possible risks to AI safety from increasing hardware capacities and whether or not working on AI safety might contribute to capabilities).
Leverage 1.0 thought a lot about the impact of psychology research and came to the view that sharing the research would be positive. Evaluating this is an area where it’s hard to build detailed models though so I’d be keen to learn more about EA research on these kinds of questions.