In fairness, I think some Psychology is reasonably theory supported.
For example, there is that famous study where the economist added extra “decoy” options of ways to subscribe (https://thestrategystory.com/2020/10/02/economist-magazine-a-story-of-clever-decoy-pricing/), which apparently helped a lot. I have read about related studies following this idea where they got pictures of people, asked other people to pick the most attractive from a bunch, and found that decoy effects played a part in a similar way. If you take it as a theory that people are bad at comparing options objectively, and can be swayed into taking one option by being offered a strictly-worse alternative then you would be able to make all kinds of predictions, in various different contexts and studies, that you could maybe carry across.
However, I do have a lot of sympathy for your general position. A simple theory that is mostly-right is gold, a staggering textbook of complexity that is 100% right is just overfitting. Economics has a lot of the former, psychology more of the latter.
In fairness, I think some Psychology is reasonably theory supported.
For example, there is that famous study where the economist added extra “decoy” options of ways to subscribe (https://thestrategystory.com/2020/10/02/economist-magazine-a-story-of-clever-decoy-pricing/), which apparently helped a lot. I have read about related studies following this idea where they got pictures of people, asked other people to pick the most attractive from a bunch, and found that decoy effects played a part in a similar way. If you take it as a theory that people are bad at comparing options objectively, and can be swayed into taking one option by being offered a strictly-worse alternative then you would be able to make all kinds of predictions, in various different contexts and studies, that you could maybe carry across.
However, I do have a lot of sympathy for your general position. A simple theory that is mostly-right is gold, a staggering textbook of complexity that is 100% right is just overfitting. Economics has a lot of the former, psychology more of the latter.