Haven't read the article, but I'll hold off on kosher or neutral until I hear
more about what the authors say about their findings. As John notes below,
it's crucial to distinguish exploratory from confirmatory modes of data
analysis. The former is perfectly acceptable in science, but needs to be
presented explicitly as such. If the authors say, on the basis of largely
post-hoc analyses, that "We have found evidence for birth order effects on ..."
rather than "We have unearthed preliminary evidence for birth order effects
on..., which need to be regarded tentatively pending replication," then they're
up for justified criticism.
The article's title, which not only refers explicitly to a birth order
finding, but uses the remarkable term "affects" for correlational data (were
the editors and reviewers asleep on this one?), is not encouraging. But I
suppose we should first all have a closer look.....Scott
Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D.
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The Master in the Art of Living makes little distinction between his work and
his play,
his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his
recreation,
his love and his intellectual passions. He hardly knows which is which.
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To him – he is always doing both.
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(slightly modified)
-----Original Message-----
From: John Kulig [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, December 07, 2009 1:14 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Birth order effects for cooperation?
I distinguish between a context of discovery, where one SHOULD massage data to
discover things (serendipity), and a context of justification (publication) in
which we try to convince others of our conclusions. If a researcher (using more
than just p = such and such) really believes they have found something, they
should try to publish it. It's the responsibility of the reviewers and editors
to judge whether the conclusions are warranted, hopefully also using more than
p = etc. The best hedge against Type I errors is replication, and getting it
published is a way to invite replication. So I'd say kosher .. or at least
neutral!
--------------------------
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
--------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Allen" <[email protected]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, December 7, 2009 11:44:24 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [tips] Birth order effects for cooperation?
Hi Stephen-
Looks like a case of data-mining to me as well. Unless they show an apriori
rationale for such a strange grouping then I would disregard their findings.
-Don.
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
Date: Monday, December 7, 2009 8:11 am
Subject: [tips] Birth order effects for cooperation?
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
> OK, here's another study I'm mulling over. Courtiol et al (2009)
> have just reported an experiment on cooperation in college
> students as a function of birth order. Their measure of
> cooperation is an objective one, taken from the results of a two-
> person game. The game provides numerical values for trust and
> reciprocity, determined by how much money each player sends
> or returns to his partner. Although birth order studies are
> infested with methodological problems, this design, as far as I
> can see, successfully avoids them.
>
> The history of claims for birth order effects is not a happy one
> (e.g. see Judith Rich Harris' "Four Essays on Birth Order"
> (2004) at http://xchar.home.att.net/tna/birth-order/index.htm
> and
> also her more recent review in "No Two Alike" (2006)--the
> chapter headed 'Birth Order and Other Environmental
> Differences Within the Family"). So I paid attention when
> Courtiol et al reported positive effects of birth order on both
> trust
> and reciprocity.
>
> But here's the catch. They provided a complex statistical
> analysis (to me, anyway) but their analysis depends on a
> curious grouping of birth order: first-borns comprised one
> group,
> and later-borns the other. But the later-born group also
> included
> only children (without siblings). On logical grounds, one would
> think that only children belong in the first-born category
> instead.
>
> Their justification for doing this was inspection of the data.
> For
> trust: "Means of x [their monetary datum] for middleborn,
> lastborn and only children appeared much closer to each other
> than to the mean of x for firstborns (Table 2); these three
> categories were therefore pooled." For reciprocity: "Only
> children and laterborns were pooled because their average
> amounts sent (y) were closer to each other than to the average
> amount sent by firstborns (Table 2)."
>
> My own inspection of their data suggests that without this post-
> hoc categorization, they would not have been able to report
> significant results. Is their move kosher, or do we have a case
> of
> data-massaging here?
>
> _Science_ has a news item on the study at
> http://tinyurl.com/ylc4l34
> It does not mention the peculiar definition of "later-borns".
>
> Stephen
>
> Courtiol, A. Raymond, M. and Faurie, C. (2009). Birth order
> affects behaviour in the investment game: Firstborns are less
> trustful and reciprocate less. Animal Behaviour, 78, 1405-1411.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
> Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
> Bishop's University
> e-mail: [email protected]
> 2600 College St.
> Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7
> Canada
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
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>
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Don Allen, Retired
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Langara College
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