Bending the Curve on a Long War’s Mental Toll

The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Washington — The annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, held here over the Memorial Day weekend, presented plenty of worry for those concerned over the field’s recent, high-profile troubles with replication, data quality, and fraud.

There was the half-day session on “Building a Better Psychological Science,” which featured several scientists who have raised alarms about the field in the past two years, including Daniel Kahneman, a professor emeritus of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and Brian Nosek, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. And for the truly self-flagellating, Scott Lilienfeld, of Emory University, had the talk for you: “Why Many Laypersons and Politicians Don’t View Our Field as Scientific,” its subtitle went.

Perhaps it was because of this doubtful swirl, or because of the holiday weekend, and knowing those crisp flags would be snapping over Arlington Cemetery, across the river, but I was drawn to another talk. Col. Paul Bliese, a leading U.S. Army psychologist, was speaking in a small side room on what the military has done for the mental health of the more than two million veterans who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Read the whole story: The Chronicle of Higher Education