How to distinguish social psychology from opinion-based questions?

Question

I often come across questions asking about the motivations of some social group, human behaviour or a social phenomena. For example:

• “Doomsday preppers” - do they want the World to end?
• What causes someone to scapegoat?

Often they get closed because they are "opinion based" or "too broad". Sometimes (perhaps misguidedly) I participate in the closing of these questions, but I feel like I'm mis-using the closing tool, since my reason for closing is often just "I don't like this question".

I need help. Despite taking a first year psychology course in university, I'm still confused about the appropriate use of it here. How does one distinguish a valid social psychology question from one that is purely opinion-based or too broad?

Answer 1

My strategy is to try and imagine the empirical research that would need to exist in order to answer the question.

If I can't imagine empirical results that would give a reasonably definitive answer on the question, then I'll vote to close as primarily opinion based.

If I can imagine hypothetical experiments that would be informative, but there are so many of them that a reasonable response to the question would almost certainly be really incomplete, then I'll vote to close as too broad.