Psychologists have a traditional concern with participant samples from narrow populations and deleterious effects on researchers' ability to generalize findings. Recently, both individuals and authoritative organizations, such as the American Psychological Association, have merged this external validity concern with diversity and inclusion concerns. The American Psychological Association directive for researchers to include diverse samples seems obviously well-taken as it purports to mitigate these problems at once; it simultaneously increases external validity and promotes diversity and inclusion. However, we show that there are complications. These include problems with internal and external validity conceptualizations; that sometimes generalization failures can support, rather than detract from, external validity; the crucial role auxiliary assumptions play in impacting internal and external validity; Lakatosian degenerative science and its problematic application; and distinguishing between merely including diverse groups in research samples versus analyzing for group differences. These complications imply a nuanced perspective of whether samples from narrow populations are undesirable. That a sample is from a narrow population might, or might not, preclude strong support or disconfirmation for the theory, including its ability to generalize. Our nuanced perspective militates against the current trend of journal directives to require diverse samples. Sample suitability for particular researcher goals should be judged on a case-by-case basis that takes into account that sometimes samples from narrow populations can nevertheless engender impressive scientific progress and sometimes not. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

对来自狭窄人群的样本在科学上存在问题的程度有细致入微的看法。


心理学家传统上担心来自狭窄人群的参与者样本以及对研究人员概括研究结果的能力的有害影响。最近，个人和权威组织（例如美国心理学会）都将这种外部有效性关注与多样性和包容性关注合并起来。美国心理学协会要求研究人员纳入不同样本的指令似乎显然很受欢迎，因为它旨在立即缓解这些问题；它同时提高了外部有效性并促进了多样性和包容性。然而，我们表明存在复杂性。其中包括内部和外部有效性概念化的问题；有时泛化失败可以支持而不是削弱外部有效性；辅助假设在影响内部和外部效度方面发挥的关键作用；拉卡托斯退化科学及其有问题的应用；区分仅将不同群体纳入研究样本与分析群体差异。这些复杂性意味着需要从细微的角度来看待来自狭窄人群的样本是否不受欢迎。样本来自少数群体可能会也可能不会排除对该理论的强烈支持或否定，包括其概括能力。我们细致入微的观点与当前期刊指令要求多样化样本的趋势背道而驰。样本对于特定研究人员目标的适用性应根据具体情况进行判断，并考虑到有时来自少数群体的样本仍然可以产生令人印象深刻的科学进步，有时则不能。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。