Is the “Cinderella Effect” Controversial?: A Case Study of Evolution-Minded Research and Critiques Thereof

Skepticism is a useful faculty for any scientist, and one that the social sciences afford their practitioners abundant opportunities to exercise. However, the work of evolutionary psychologists has elicited more than its share of skepticism, for reasons that seem to have little to do with the quality of either the theorizing that motivated the researchers’ hypotheses or their evidence. An example is provided by critical reactions to our own research on the “Cinderella effect”.