Increasing the Reproducibility of Social Psychologists

Rhonni St. Germain

Alan Civil

University of Northern Utopia

Background

Problem & Methods

It is a well-known fact that psychologists are solitary creatures

social psychologists especially. They spend all day in the lab,
and all night angrily grading papers. Although the past few
years have witnessed a proliferation of interest in improving the
reproducibility of psychological science (Open Science
Collaboration, 2015; Dreber et al., 2015), little attention has
been devoted to the equally deserving issue of improving the
reproducibility of psychological scientists. At first blush,
enhancing the reproducibility of social psychologists might
seem an even more dubious project than permanently
implementing research practices that improve the quality of
social psychology. Nonetheless, the question has not been
systematically investigated, and we were optimistic that it was
possible. We undertook to study which methods, if any, may
improve the lot of the minimally reproducible social
psychologist.

Reproducibility over Time

1

Fig. 1

0.9

Hahvahd

Odds of sexual reproducibility

Fig. 1 indicates the basic problem facing social psychologists.

As ones career progresses, sexual reproducibility, already low
compared to the general population, drops precipitously (red
line). Ironically, these key years are devoted towards building a
scientific body of research, efforts which are eventually undone
with time (blue line).
The authors engaged in a methodology pioneered by
Wilhelm Wundt, which we call gonzo thought experiments but
which he called introspection. It is also known as guessing,
and has the undeniable advantage of having high Bayesian
priors.

Results
Method

Efficacy

Notes

Being yourself

Low

When has this EVER worked??

Tinder

Low

Haha, no. Look at yourself.

NPR and chill

Low

Because you cant afford

Netflix

Leaving the lab

Moderate Will work as long as you dont

care about your degree/grant/
tenure

Odds of studies failing to replicate

0.8
0.7

Not telling people Moderate Works for as long as you can

youre a
resist talking about
psychologist
psychology

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1

Junior hire

Tenure

Conclusions
Although it is generally thought that scientific reproducibility
benefits from transparent, honest practices (Simmons et al.,
2011), sexual reproducibility seems to derive from the inverse.
The most effective methods of improving reproducibility were
those that involved subterfuge: lying about who you are or
distracting others with endeavors unrelated to psychology. The
clear lesson here is reproducibility improves most by eschewing
social psychology altogether.
While psychologists may yearn for higher rates of
reproducibility, especially on lonely nights in the dead of winter,
this goal requires more effort than many psychologists are willing
to put in. Some may argue that the incentive structure of the
field is such that reproducibility can never truly improve. Such
pessimism is not unwarranted, especially given the close
synchronicity between the biological and tenure clocks.
Nonetheless, there is a window of opportunity for vigorous
reproducibility, and viable methods for extending it.
Our studies failing to replicate may be all but inevitable, but
our bodies failing to replicate need not be.

References & Notes

Dreber, A., Pfeiffer, T., Almenberg, J., Isaksson, S., Wilson, B., Chen, Y., Nosek, B. A., and
Johannesson, M. (2015). Using prediction markets to estimate the reproducibility of scientific
research. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(50),1534315347.
Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science.
Science, 349(6251), 944955.
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., and Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology undisclosed
flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant.
Psychological Science, 22(11), 13591366.

Getting a TED talk High

and/or podcast

May come at the direct cost of

scientific replicability

Cloning

High

Asexual reproduction is the

last refuge of scoundrels.2

No relation.
2 It is generally considered poor form to try to reproduce oneself, especially in
public. Besides, the results are highly predictable, which takes most of the fun
out of it.
3 There is no Nobel prize for Psychology. The most you can hope for is one of
those fake Nobels in Economics. Maybe its time you gave up on this silly
dream of being a psychologist and become a novelist like you always wanted.
The bohemian life has other things to recommend it: Artists have excellent sex
lives.

Win Nobel

N/A

Keep dreaming, buddy.3

The authors would like to thank their mentor and inspiration, Arina K. Bones.

Grad school

1
University