Is scientific psychology empirical? Implications for accounting research

Much accounting research is directly or indirectly using insights from social and cognitive psychology. One of the risks of relying on psychology to inform accounting theories is that we may unwillingly adopt the inherent weaknesses of this discipline and overlook the many critical discussions in that field. Especially now that psychological research is plagued by concerns about validity, reliability and replicability attention to the psychological theorizing in accounting research seems warranted and timely. In this presentation I address a specific concern about psychological research that originates in a philosophical analysis of the so-called folk psychological roots of much scientific psychology research. This concern boils down to one about the alleged pseudo-empirical nature of much scientific psychology. I will introduce this concern, sketch the debate, and analyze the importance of the accusation for our understanding of much psychological theorizing. I will then discuss the implications of my analysis for psychology based accounting research.