The Personality Meta-Blog

Discussions about p-hacking sometimes go sideways. A hypothetical exchange might go like this:

READER: Those p-values are all hovering just below .05, I bet the authors p-hacked.

AUTHOR: I know that I did not p-hack, and I resent the accusation.

By comparison, consider how we talk about another form of potential bias: experimenter effects. It is widely accepted that experimenters’ expectations, beliefs, or other characteristics can influence participants in behavioral experiments and medical trials. We also accept that this can happen without intent or even awareness on the part of the experimenter. Expectations about how participants receiving a treatment are supposed to differ from those receiving a placebo might show up in the experimenter’s behavior in subtle ways that could influence the participants. We also don’t have a complete theory of experimenter effects that allows us to reliably measure every manifestation or predict with high confidence when they will and won’t occur. So instead, we consider them as an open possibility in a wide range of situations. Continue reading →

Six years ago I floated an idea for scientific journals that I nicknamed the Pottery Barn Rule. The name is a reference to an apocryphal retail store policy captured in the phrase, “you break it, you bought it.” The idea is that if you pick something up in the store, you are responsible for what happens to it in your hands.* The gist of the idea in that blog post was as follows: “Once a journal has published a study, it becomes responsible for publishing direct replications of that study. Publication is subject to editorial review of technical merit but is not dependent on outcome.” The Pottery Barn framing was somewhat lighthearted, but a more serious inspiration for it (though I don’t think I emphasized this much at the time) was newspaper correction policies. When news media take a strong stance on vetting reports of errors and correcting the ones they find, they are more credible in the long run. The good ones understand that taking a short-term hit when they mess up is part of that larger process.** The core principle driving the Pottery Barn Rule is accountability. When a peer-reviewed journal publishes an empirical claim, its experts have judged the claim to be sound enough to tell the world about. Continue reading →