Allen has provided one more helpful example of replication (even a published lack of replication) in psychological science with the Bulevich et al (2006) study. What seems to be being confounded here is the scientific evaluation of an original finding as opposed to what appears in the popular press. I don't think we can count on the popular press to wait for replication. News is called news because it is new so the first time a particular finding occurs will be when it is news whereas scientists will wait for replication. I do realize that individual scientists don't help much with the press releases they issue on their findings. However, other scientists, who may not be so credulous on scientific topics as the press, are still likely to replicate, if only to build on the new finding. If it isn't replicable, there won't be much follow-up on it in the scientific literature (even if failures to replicate aren't published).
So, instead of looking to the press for the importance of replication in science, we should look to the number of reference citations eventually given to a new work. If a phenomenon can't be replicated, it isn't going to have much impact on science (although it may have an impact on the popular understanding of science as disseminated by the media). Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected] ________________________________________ From: Allen Esterson [[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2011 4:25 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re:[tips] Stapel's faking of social psychology data Presumably in response to my writing this: > My impression is that this is frequently not the case in psychology, > with results of studies sometimes being widely cited regardless of > whether they have been replicated. Jim Clark provided a justified corrective: >Is replication that uncommon in psychology? Just a couple of observations >1. the recently cited paper noting that effects get weaker in >subsequent studies would require replications even to conduct the analysis >2. meta-analysis requires multiple replications of some effect (e.g., > gender differences); otherwise again not possible to do a meta-analysis >3. I can think of many, many areas where there are repeated demonstrations >of certain effects (e.g., serial position curve, DRM false memory effect, >caregiver-infant attachment, ...). I agree with virtually everything Jim wrote [see below]. I would just add two comments. I should have made clear that what I had in mind was the limited field of social psychology, where results of studies (typically based on questionnaires) are on occasion publicised and widely accepted without regard to replication. But what I also had in mind was an occasional experimental claim in psychological science that is widely publicised as proven regardless of replication. For instance, the claim by Anderson and Green (2001) to have experimentally validated Freudian repression mechanisms: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410366a0.html A University of Oregon press release (no longer available online) reported: "Our findings are consistent with Freud's notions of suppression and repression, but go a long ways towards demystifying the process," says the paper's co-author Michael Anderson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. "Our work allows Freud's idea to be understood in terms of widely accepted mechanisms of cognitive control that apply in a broader range of circumstances." As a result of the press release this paper was widely heralded in the press as vindication of Freudian repression. Leaving aside the criticism that the kind of innocuous memory suppression claimed in the paper bore little relation to Freudian repression, passing virtually unnoticed was this report of failure to replicate the results: Bulevichet al (2006) Anderson and Green (2001) had subjects learn paired associates and then selectively suppress responses to some of them. They reported a decrease in final cued recall for responses that subjects had been instructed not to think of and explained their data as resulting from cognitive suppression, a laboratory analog of repression. We report three experiments designed to replicate the suppression/repression results. […] None of our experiments showed reliable suppression effects with either the same or independent-probe tests. Suppression is apparently not a robust experimental phenomenon in the think/no-think paradigm. http://www.psych.wustl.edu/coglab/publications/bulevich2006.pdf Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department SouthwarkCollege, London [email protected] http://www.esterson.org @fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=13940 or send a blank email to leave-13940-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
