Psychological research is an exercise in trust. At the foundation of every psychological experiment lies a fundamental confidence between participant and researcher: that the participant will engage honestly, and that the researcher will act ethically and handle data responsibly. But psychologists must do more than establish trust with participants. They also bear the responsibility of convincing the general public that their findings are valid, transparent, and reliable.
We take these principles for granted now, but psychology would not be the field it is today without seismic shifts in its past. As it happens, Yale sits at the epicenter of this history. From the dawn of eugenics to the advent of institutional review boards to the contemporary unfolding of the reproducibility crisis, any story about the history of trust in psychology inevitably winds through this campus.
A Shocking History
A pivotal chapter in this story began in the 1960s, when a Yale social psychologist named Stanley Milgram carried out a now-notorious series of experiments in the basement of Linsly-Chittenden Hall. Under the guise of a learning exercise, participants were instructed to administer electric shocks to a “learner,” who was in fact an actor, whenever an incorrect answer was given. The electric shocks, accompanied by recorded screams, would gradually increase in intensity until the learner suddenly fell silent. Participants were often reluctant to proceed, but the “experimenter” directing the session would encourage—or even command—them to continue. Milgram found that learners were surprisingly likely to comply despite their reservations, demonstrating the powerful influence of a perceived authority on decision-making. This research, along with subsequent publications of corroborating work, proved formative in the way psychologists understand the role of obedience and authority.
Later on, however, the Milgram experiment became known as a quintessential example of the ethical shortcomings of mid-twentieth-century psychological research. While participants were informed of the ruse after the experiment, the use of deception and the emotional stress imposed on subjects during the experiment raised lasting concerns about consent and researcher responsibility.
While the Milgram experiment horrified members of the public, it was far from the last major case of unethical research to shock Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. The Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 and the revelation of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1972 shook the nation and eventually led Congress to pass the National Research Act of 1974. The Act established the Institutional Review Board (IRB) system, which imposes rigorous ethical standards on research involving human subjects. Today, it would be impossible for an experiment like Milgram’s to gain IRB approval.
Can We Trust Psychology’s Findings?
By the 2010s, the issue of trust in psychology shifted from one of ethical concerns to one of research validity. In 2015, psychology researchers at Yale and other leading institutions were shaken by the release of a paper in Nature titled “Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test,” which found that only thirty-five percent of psychological findings could be successfully reproduced—that is, independently repeated with the same methods and results. Dubbed the “reproducibility crisis,” a new wave of uncertainty and panic swept through academic psychology, a field that relies on systematic and often qualitative observations to draw conclusions about human behavior.
Rather than concerning participants, this crisis involved the trust of the broader public. Tariq Khan, a Yale faculty member who lectures on the history of psychology, asserts that the Nature result is unsurprising. “Part of the reproducibility crisis was that they were trying to universalize findings that should have been specific to their sample,” Khan said. In other words, results that reflected upon a particular demographic group—like American college students—were often erroneously portrayed as revealing aspects of fundamental human nature. This tendency was driven in part by academic incentives that rewarded broad, attention-grabbing conclusions, even when the underlying data came from narrow or unrepresentative samples. One key to regaining the trust of both peers and the public is to better clarify the relevance of the findings when conclusions are drawn in psychological research. When an author clearly specifies how the findings of a particular study may apply to people with a similar demographic to the sample, for example, their work yields more informative and reproducible insights.
The Historical Roots of Mistrust
Another critical challenge to psychology’s credibility stems not from concerns about the reliability of data or infamous studies like the Milgram shock experiments, but rather from the field’s deep historical connections to eugenics and other oppressive practices—particularly at Yale. Long before psychology became mainstream in the United States, white enslavers acted as early “researchers,” publishing articles that proposed psychological diagnoses for enslaved people who fled plantations in the American South and advocated for torture as a “cure.”
In the 1920s and 1930s, these ideas were formalized through major eugenics programs led in part by Yale psychologists. Eugenics—now thoroughly discredited—aimed to “improve” the human population through selective reproduction to prevent the inheritance of the so-called less “desirable” traits. These included forced sterilization procedures, the reinforcement of racist hierarchies, and the promotion of restrictive immigration policies. Yale not only participated in the eugenics movement but helped propel its growth nationwide: Yale faculty and alumni, many of them psychologists, founded and directed the American Eugenics Society in New Haven, remnants of which still remain.
“If you look at the gate in front of the School of Medicine, it still says ‘Institute of Human Relations.’ That is the institute founded for the purposes of eugenics research by then Yale President Angell, a psychologist who once said that Bridgeport and New Haven needed to be ethnically cleansed every twenty years,” Khan said.
But reminders of Yale psychology’s history in eugenics and oppression don’t only appear in physical structures around campus—they are ingrained in the collective memory of the very communities that Yale psychologists so often conduct research within. More than data reliability or reproducibility, Khan argues, these memories sow mistrust in modern psychology among researchers in these communities, along with others that have been similarly impacted by the actions of earlier psychologists.
“Some distrust might not be earned, but there’s a lot of distrust that has been earned,” Khan said.
Community-Centered Change
While Yale has moved toward reconciliation through initiatives such as the Anti-Eugenics Collective at Yale, Khan asserts that there remains work to be done to regain public trust in psychology. In addition to university-wide interventions, efforts in community building and improving researcher conduct are essential for repairing Yale’s relationship with the populations who make up the majority of the psychology department’s participants.
At the level of interpersonal conduct, Khan shares a simple message for psychology researchers: treat participants as humans, not subjects.
“That kind of stuff is what [currently] sows a lot of distrust […] the arrogance of using human beings as just raw material for studies. Those communities get nothing in return, right?” Khan said. In order to overcome their exploitative reputations within participant communities, and therefore public opinion, psychologists must redesign studies as mutually beneficial endeavors, rather than one-sided projects that use the community as a resource. Instead of taking from communities, this approach provides researchers with the authentic opportunity to give back.
Beyond these reframing and conduct practices, trust-building should begin even before designing the study, as soon as a researcher considers working with a specific participant population. This includes engaging community members in the design of research questions, ensuring results will be shared in accessible ways, and aligning studies with the needs and priorities of the populations involved.
“My main piece of advice for doing community-based research is just to be a regular person who’s part of that community. Be involved in the community for a while before you even think about doing a project in that community,” Khan said.
Establishing trust is much more than simply producing repeatable results; it’s about demonstrating respect, reciprocity, and a willingness to engage with people on their own terms.