Reproducible Analyses

 

The existence of publication bias and risk factors for its occurrence.

Publication bias is the tendency on the parts of investigators, reviewers, and editors to submit or accept manuscripts for publication based on the direction or strength of the study findings. Much of what has been learned about publication bias …

The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results.

For any given research area, one cannot tell how many studies have been conducted but never reported. The extreme view of the "file drawer problem" is that journals are filled with the 5% of the studies that show Type I errors, while the file drawers …

Theory-Testing in Psychology and Physics: A Methodological Paradox

Because physical theories typically predict numerical values, an improvement in experimental precision reduces the tolerance range and hence increases corroborability. In most psychological research, improved power of a statistical design leads to a …

Bite-Size Science and Its Undesired Side Effects

Short and rapid publication of research findings has many advantages. However, there is another side of the coin that needs careful consideration. We argue that the most dangerous aspect of a shift toward “bite-size” publishing is the relationship …

Is the replicability crisis overblown? Three arguments examined

We discuss three arguments voiced by scientists who view the current outpouring of concern about replicability as overblown. The first idea is that the adoption of a low alpha level (e.g., 5%) puts reasonable bounds on the rate at which errors can …

Meta-analyses are no substitute for registered replications: a skeptical perspective on religious priming

According to a recent meta-analysis, religious priming has a positive effect on prosocial behavior (Shariff et al., 2015). We first argue that this meta-analysis suffers from a number of methodological shortcomings that limit the conclusions that can …

Psychologists Are Open to Change, yet Wary of Rules

Psychologists must change the way they conduct and report their research—this notion has been the topic of much debate in recent years. One article recently published in Psychological Science proposing six requirements for researchers concerning data …

Publication bias and the canonization of false facts.

Science is facing a “replication crisis” in which many experimental findings cannot be replicated and are likely to be false. Does this imply that many scientific facts are false as well? To find out, we explore the process by which a claim becomes …

Publication Bias in Psychology: A Diagnosis Based on the Correlation between Effect Size and Sample Size

Background: The p value obtained from a significance test provides no information about the magnitude or importance of the underlying phenomenon. Therefore, additional reporting of effect size is often recommended. Effect sizes are theoretically …

Publication bias in the social sciences: Unlocking the file drawer

We studied publication bias in the social sciences by analyzing a known population of conducted studies—221 in total—in which there is a full accounting of what is published and unpublished. We leveraged Time-sharing Experiments in the Social …
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