Concerns that demographic reporting requirements are deleterious and unethical to psychology

According to the journal scope statement of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (JEP:HPP), researchers are now required to report demographics and justify their sample compositions. However, we feel that the requirement is indefensible on both conceptual and ethical grounds. Conceptually, the requirement wrongly emphasizes generalizing findings rather than generalizing theories without recognizing the crucial role auxiliary assumptions play in the generalization process. Moreover, it distracts researchers with a focus on theoretically irrelevant measures, fails to distinguish between including demographics as moderators in analyses versus as mere classification percentages, encourages researchers to commit the fallacy of using interindividual summary statistics to draw conclusions at the intraindividual level, and potentially reduces sampling precision. Ethically, the requirement places poor or minority researchers at a disadvantage and has the potential to create unnecessary anxiety for participants. It also pushes European and British researchers to violate the General Data Protection Regulation that operates in Europe and the UK, thereby placing those researchers in an untenable situation.