Frontiers in Social Science features new research in the flagship journals of the Social Science Research Council’s founding disciplinary associations. Every month we publish a new selection of articles from the most recent issues of these journals, marking the rapid advance of the frontiers of social and behavioral science.
A systematic review of 562 randomized controlled trials of psychotherapies for depression treatment finds that a majority of trials do not meet basic quality criteria, even in recent years.
Since the 1970s, hundreds of randomized trials have examined the effects of psychotherapies for depression, and this number is increasing every year. In this study, we report outcomes from a living systematic review of these studies. We use Poisson regression analyses to examine if the proportions of studies have changed over time across the characteristics of the participants, therapies, and studies. We also present a meta-analysis of the effects across the major types, formats, targets, and age groups. We included 562 randomized controlled trials (669 comparisons; 66,361 patients). Most trials are conducted in adults and the relative proportion of trials in children and adolescents, as well as in older patients is significantly decreasing. The effects in children and adolescents are also significantly smaller than in adults (p = .007). Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is by far the best examined type of therapy (52%), but not necessarily more effective than other therapies. Over time, the proportion of studies examining several other types of therapy is significantly decreased compared to CBT. The quality of trials has increased over time, but still, a majority do not meet basic quality criteria, not even in recent years. The effects found in studies with low risk of bias are significantly smaller than in other studies (b = −0.21; SE = 0.05; p < .001). Most trials are conducted in the United States, but the proportion of studies in other parts of the world is rapidly increasing. The evidence that psychotherapies are effective is strong and growing every year.
A dataset of over one million US respondents shows that many couples do not allocate their retirement savings into accounts with higher employer match rates, contrary to theoretical models of household decision-making.
We study how couples allocate retirement-saving contributions across each spouse's account. In a new dataset covering over a million US individuals, we find retirement contributions are not allocated to the account with the highest employer match rate. This lack of coordination—which goes against the assumptions of most models of household decision-making—is common, costly, persistent over time, and cannot be explained by inertia, auto-enrollment, or simple heuristics. Complementing the administrative evidence with an online survey, we find that inefficient allocations reflect both financial mistakes as well as deliberate choices, especially when trust and commitment inside the households are weak.