Socioeconomic status (SES; or social class) is considered an important determinant of psychological and life outcomes. Despite this importance, how to appropriately conceive of and measure it remains unsettled. In this article, I argue that SES is, under conventional conceptions of the construct, an unmeasurable construct and present an alternative strategy for studying socioeconomic conditions. I make this argument using several lines of analysis. First, a literature review of 20 years of psychological research on SES reveals that psychologists rarely define SES theoretically (79.6% of articles did not) but call a great number of operationalizations measures of SES (147 in total). Second, current recommendations for studying SES permit contradictory predictions, rendering the recommendations unsatisfactory. Third, the appropriate measurement model for SES inhibits accumulation of results across studies, which makes studying the construct practically impossible. To rectify these issues, I reconceptualize SES as a set of socioeconomic conditions and develop a measurement strategy for studying these conditions. I conclude by considering implications for ongoing research on socioeconomic conditions and for interpreting past research on SES.

Empirical audit and review is an approach to assessing the evidentiary value of a research area. It involves identifying a topic and selecting a cross-section of studies for replication. We apply the method to research on the psychological consequences of scarcity. Starting with the papers citing a seminal publication in the field, we conducted replications of 20 studies that evaluate the role of scarcity priming in pain sensitivity, resource allocation, materialism, and many other domains. There was considerable variability in the replicability, with some strong successes and other undeniable failures. Empirical audit and review does not attempt to assign an overall replication rate for a heterogeneous field, but rather facilitates researchers seeking to incorporate strength of evidence as they refine theories and plan new investigations in the research area. This method allows for an integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches to review and enables the growth of a cumulative science.

Personality is not the most popular subfield of psychology. But, in one way or another, personality psychologists have played an outsized role in the ongoing “credibility revolution” in psychology. Not only have individual personality psychologists taken on visible roles in the movement, but our field’s practices and norms have now become models for other fields to emulate (or, for those who share Baumeister’s (2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.02.003) skeptical view of the consequences of increasing rigor, a model for what to avoid). In this article we discuss some unique features of our field that may have placed us in an ideal position to be leaders in this movement. We do so from a subjective perspective, describing our impressions and opinions about possible explanations for personality psychology’s disproportionate role in the credibility revolution. We also discuss some ways in which personality psychology remains less-than-optimal, and how we can address these flaws.

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Socioeconomic status (SES, or social class) is considered an important determinant of psychological and life outcomes. Despite this importance, how to appropriately conceive of and measure it remains unsettled. In this article I argue that SES is, under conventional conceptions of the construct, an unmeasurable construct and present an alternative strategy for studying socioeconomic conditions. I make this argument using several lines of analysis. First, a literature review of 20 years of psychological research on SES reveals that psychologists rarely define SES theoretically (79.6% of articles did not) but call a great number of operationalizations measures of SES (147 in total). Second, current recommendations for studying SES permit contradictory predictions, rendering the recommendations unsatisfactory. Third, the appropriate measurement model for SES inhibits accumulation of results across studies, making studying the construct practically impossible. To rectify these issues, I reconceptualize SES as a set of socioeconomic conditions and develop a measurement strategy for studying these conditions. I conclude by considering implications for ongoing research on socioeconomic conditions, as well as for interpreting past research on SES.