Hi Carol, I have written over 12 nonfiction books — reprinted in over 20 countries. So yes, I do understand the research process. This is not my first rodeo 😉

As a note, whenever I reference any study, if it contains less than 100 participants, I make a note of that. I also do not use any non-peered review studies, redacted studies (yes, I check), or studies with spurious statistical reporting. I am very careful about which studies I quote. It’s the most time-consuming aspect of writing these articles.

The problem with many psychological studies is not sampling from college studies, but replication issues.

But all research suffers from replication issues, not just psychology. Psychology is an imperfect field. Still, these researchers are doing valuable empirical work, even if they are forced to use college students to keep costs down. Some of our most famous studies (the marshmallow test, 10,000 hour rule, ego depletion, etc., to name some examples) have been called into question. It surely can be more of an art than a science at times.