A recipe for (attempting to) replicate existing findings in psychology

Regular readers of this blog will know that social psychology has gone through a traumatic time of late. Some of its most high profile proponents have been found guilty of research fraud. And some of the field's landmark findings have turned out to be less robust than hoped. This has led to soul searching and one proposal for strengthening the discipline is to encourage more replication attempts of existing research findings. To this end, some journals have introduced dedicated replication article formats and pressure is building on others to follow suit. As the momentum for reform builds, an international team of psychologists has now published an open-access article outlining their "Replication Recipe" - key steps for conducting and publishing a convincing replication. This is an important development because when high-profile findings have failed to replicate there's been a tendency in recent times for ill-feeling and controversy to ensue. In particular, on more than one occasion the authors of the original findings have complained that the failed replication attempt was of poor quality or not suitably similar to the original methods. In fact it's notable that one of the co-authors of this new paper is Ap Dijksterhuis who published his own tetchy response to a failed replication of his work earlier this year. Dijksterhuis and the others, led by Mark Brandt at Tilburg University (coincidentally the institution of the disgraced psychologist Diederik Stapel), outline five ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs