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A very HARD question for even the most KNOWLEDGABLE buddhist I would say..
What scientific psychological evidence directly pairs with principles of Buddhism? for eg the 4 noble truths may link with something like evidence of constantly wanting because it is survivalist, relating to human nature, yet to acknowledge this instinct is to understand it and control it? I'd love to hear some ideas or facts and evidence anyone has 
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Another example of how efficiently the West 'appropriates' things from other cultures then disguises them and calls them 'ours'.
What I am suggesting is that it might better to start from the Buddhist side in order to appreciate those 'connections'.
And this information is widely available. I don't know that one has to be a particularly knowledgeable Buddhist scholar to know these things. I myself don't know diddly about Buddhism compared to some of the other folks here. And I would suspect that those who spend a lot of time in traditional Buddhist scholarship may not take as much time to study your proposed psychological correlates, because, as has been pointed out above, there's not really a huge need to from their point of view. Buddhism stands by itself as a great leap in what we in the West call "psychology", as well as phenomenology and epistemology. Who really needs to spend a whole lot of time making Buddhism fit into Western psychological concepts anyway, unless it's out of a driving scientific curiosity such as Davidson has?
Check out Davidson's work. Pretty amazing stuff.
Buddhism supplies answers to very profound questions of being. One child is born sightless to poverty stricken parents in a drought stricken and war ravaged region of Africa and another to immensely wealthy parents in a penthouse in Zurich. One older child was born with an IQ of 60 and can barely feed himself and another is reading an encyclopedia by the age of two. A four year old girl who never took a music lesson can play several different instruments while another with cerebral palsy can not even hold a spoon. One child is born into a the Brahman caste and another to an untouchable family. Still another overcomes her disability and goes on to develop a cure for aides while a perfectly healthy world class athlete suffers a career ending compound fracture of the femur. There are 5 billion examples of differences in fortune, wisdom, physical and mental drive and abilities. What accounts for these differences?
There are rare incredible and inexplicable abilities of some, not long after birth. There are those with documented first hand knowledge of historical individuals, circumstances, and locations. Lastly, there are unmistakable shared physical and mental characteristics between deceased and living individuals with no associated shared heredity.
Only the doctrine of Karma reasonably explains and answers this observable reality.
Collective Karma...
All those with cerebral palsy, those born white, those killed in the holocaust, doctors, lawyers, indian chiefs. Either there is individual and group responsibility or there is none. Weal and woe happens by chance, the will of god, or through the thoughts, words, and actions of individuals and groups. I choose to believe in personal and group responsibility causes by thoughts, words, and deeds since the infinite past. Are you the agent of youe weal or woe? I hit my thumb with a hammer. I would be a fool to blame someone else. Likewise, only fools blame others or the environment for their misery and misfortune.
Karma can be the most comforting or the most disquieting belief, depending on one’s Buddhist faith and practice. Certitude of karmic reward is always comforting while certitude of karmic retribution may or may not be disquieting. You will have to repay your karmic debt. If you have accumulated much karmic reward, the debt seems insignificant. If you have accumulated little karmic reward, your debt seems oppressive. Chanting Namu Myoho renge kyo with a correct faith and teaching others to do the same, is the way to accumulate infinite karmic reward. Your tribulations will pale in significance.
Disregarding the tons of material corrolating Buddhism and modern psychology/behavioral science/psychiatry.
I think The Anatta principal is pretty vital to any scientist to abide by. The principal of objective vs subjective value.
Also the Annica and Dukkha principals relates directly to Thermodynamics. There can be no perpetum mobile - Annicca. To conserve present state energy has to be invested--> Dukkha.
Karma principal subsumes the energy conservation principal of science perfectly.No energy is lost only converted.
I look at it this way if Science and Buddhism disagree on anything I am willing to give Science a couple of thousand years to catch up. Thats after all how far behind modern science is...
Regards
Victor
A teeny speck of Universal Mind got stuck in these biological forms for about 80 years by jumping aboard a fertilized egg.
Result is we're stuck in a crappy biological situation where "survival of the fittest" is the organizing principle.
Buddhist principles are an extraction of knowledge from Infinite Mind which is a gift to us from The Buddha advising us on how to survive psychologically in this rather-crummy-though-still-amazing biological realm.
Most humans have no idea of how to properly behave and so they act like animals (Saddam, Stalin or the common misanthrope in the slammer for example).
If course Infinite Mind is HUUUUUUUUUGE and we have no business as humans with teeny brains even trying to understand it.
We may _EXPERIENCE_ it ( like a baby experiences a roller coaster) but it can never be communicated nor explained (baby's got no understanding of roller coasters, and they're bad communicators with other babies as far as roller coasters are concerned).
Science? In our world it's a big deal. In the larger scheme it's just a "stupid pet trick" (David Letterman) of the human brain as an organ connected to sense organs; all of which somehow accommodate that teeny speck of Infinite Mind for about 80 years.
Maybe you could list the psychological concepts for what you want to find correlates for in Buddhism and we could answer them that way.
For instance, the survival instinct is something that we inherited from prehumans and it is no longer adaptive (beyond survival) in human societies. Having or craving to have too much is no longer adaptive to the person because of the person's unreasonable need to guard that "too much" and it becomes neurotic and therefore a form of suffering. Beyond that, there is the simple presentation of facts: Being alive involves eventually becoming ill, eventually dying, eventually being separated from who or what we want to stay close to, or being stuck with something or someone we don't want to have in our lives. There is a solution to this suffering. The suffering is to diminish the craving for things to be other than they are, to the extent that is reasonable and practicable. The way (or one way, at least) to diminish the craving is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path.
So yes, we inherit a survival instinct from our prehistoric forbears, but to an extent it has become maladaptive for human individuals and human societies. We can stop letting that survival instinct make us crazy by following the prescription of the one sometimes known as the Great Physician, i.e., the Buddha, the one who has awakened to the truth of suffering and the way to diminish or alleviate suffering.
Next question?
Buddhists don't do that. Buddhists don't "prove to skeptics". We just let people ask, and if they're excessively skeptical we just opt out of that conversation. People will "get" Buddhism when and if the time is right, but Buddhists don't prosletyze or engage in "proving" anything.
BTW, that work done by Richard Davidson is gone into in detail in the book "Destructive Emotions- How Can We Overcome Them?" by Daniel Goleman and the DL. It's an extremely good read. I don't see any problem recommending an extremely good read to friends, but Buddhism traditionally takes care of itself without a need to prove. There is actually a prohibition against "teaching Dharma to those who are not ready to receive it." No-no.
http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/opponent-process.htm
For instance, if I asked "How does Buddhism relate to the diatonic musical scale?" and then say "Well, I don't care about music, its just in case I talk to musicians" wouldn't that seem odd to you?
Both provide methods for establishing the realization that reality is socially constructed within our mind. Once we recognize that we are no longer controlled by external forces but have the power to reject those forces we can learn to be free.
For most people this is a terrifying thought - the thought that can be free.
Dr. Roger Walsh at the University of California Irvine studies this topic.
http://appliedbuddhism.com/2010/12/10/the-buddhist-freud/
1 are optimistic
2 are in control of their lives (or at least believe to be in control to some extend)
That does not prove a thing about Buddhism.
But it may explain how we feel better off, now that we’re into practice.
We believe we are on a path towards Enlightenment, and this a path we control, because it’s all about our intentions; all about our minds.
Optimism+control=happiness.
What about this theory:
Buddhism will gain popularity when the general picture of the world and where it’s going, gets darker.
We can replace general pessimism and how we can do nothing about it, with personal optimism and control, and feel a lot better.
P
In science there is no such thing as proof or truth. Furthermore, it tends to be reductionist rather than looking at the big picture.
Invariably, there are loads of theories in modern psychology that have commonalities with Buddhism and I strongly believe that psychologists can learn far more from Buddhism than visa versa
Palzang
Is there really anything we can say about nondualism, about waking up, about Enlightenment, or about oranges?
Another aspect of helping people get through their problems is the concept of acceptance. This has definitely been making major inroads into the practice of psychology and medicine in general.
An open heart and the ability to accept "what is" make people pretty resilient even without the ability to meditate.