scholarly journals Making Replication Mainstream

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf Antonius Zwaan ◽  
Alexander Etz ◽  
Richard E. Lucas ◽  
Brent Donnellan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Single Observation ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Replication Studies ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Psychological Science

Many philosophers of science and methodologists have argued that the ability to repeat studies and obtain similar results is an essential component of science. A finding is elevated from single observation to scientific evidence when the procedures that were used to obtain it can be reproduced and the finding itself can be replicated. Recent replication attempts show that some high profile results--most notably in psychology, but in many other disciplines as well---cannot be replicated consistently. These replication attempts have generated a considerable amount of controversy and the issue of whether direct replications have value has, in particular, proven to be contentious. However, much of this discussion has occurred in published commentaries and social media outlets, resulting in a fragmented discourse. To address the need for an integrative summary, we review various types of replication studies and then discuss the most commonly voiced concerns about direct replication. We provide detailed responses to these concerns and consider different statistical ways to evaluate replications. We conclude there are no theoretical or statistical obstacles to making direct replication a routine aspect of psychological science.

scholarly journals Making replication mainstream

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf A. Zwaan ◽  
Alexander Etz ◽  
Richard E. Lucas ◽  
M. Brent Donnellan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Single Observation ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Replication Studies ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Psychological Science

AbstractMany philosophers of science and methodologists have argued that the ability to repeat studies and obtain similar results is an essential component of science. A finding is elevated from single observation to scientific evidence when the procedures that were used to obtain it can be reproduced and the finding itself can be replicated. Recent replication attempts show that some high profile results – most notably in psychology, but in many other disciplines as well – cannot be replicated consistently. These replication attempts have generated a considerable amount of controversy, and the issue of whether direct replications have value has, in particular, proven to be contentious. However, much of this discussion has occurred in published commentaries and social media outlets, resulting in a fragmented discourse. To address the need for an integrative summary, we review various types of replication studies and then discuss the most commonly voiced concerns about direct replication. We provide detailed responses to these concerns and consider different statistical ways to evaluate replications. We conclude there are no theoretical or statistical obstacles to making direct replication a routine aspect of psychological science.

scholarly journals The nature and origins of political polarization over science

2021 ◽  
pp. 096366252198919
Author(s):  
Roderik Rekker
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
Four Levels ◽  
Scientific Facts ◽  
Ideological Identity

People have a tendency to disregard information that contradicts their partisan or ideological identity. This inclination can become especially striking when citizens reject notions that scientists would consider “facts” in the light of overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus. The resulting polarization over science has reached alarming levels in recent years. This theoretical review conceptualizes political polarization over science and argues that it is driven by two interrelated processes. Through psychological science rejection, people can implicitly disregard scientific facts that are inconsistent with their political identity. Alternatively, citizens can engage in ideological science rejection by adhering to a political ideology that explicitly contests science. This contestation can in turn be subdivided into four levels of generalization: An ideology can dispute either specific scientific claims, distinct research fields, science in general, or the entire political system and elite. By proposing this interdisciplinary framework, this article aims to integrate insights from various disciplines.

Le Bon’s crowd psychology and post-truth

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-160
Author(s):  
Dusko Prelevic
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Crowd Psychology ◽  
Philosophical Community

The phenomenon of post-truth, in which truth (or facts or the best scientific evidence) is brushed aside in public debates, has recently caught the eye of many philosophers, who typically see it as a threat to deliberative democracy. In this paper, it is argued that Gustave Le Bon?s remarks on crowd psychology, which had been very popular in past (and brushed aside later on), might be relevant for a better understanding of psychological mechanisms that lead to post-truth. According to Le Bon, crowds are often irrational, whereas those who try to convince them to do something should use specific techniques of persuasion, such as affirmation, repetition, contagion and prestige, of which the last one can be undermined either by fiasco (the fastest way), or by critique (a bit slower, but nonetheless effective way). It is the age of posttruth that goes towards the neutralization of any critique (Le Bon himself considered such neutralization devastating for democratic societies), which has been, according to some authors, affected to a great extent by technological innovations in media, such as social media that some authors consider anti-social due to their negative impact on society. I argue that Le Bon?s insights might be useful to members of scientific and philosophical community in their attempts to eliminate the spreading of quasi-scientific views in public discourse.

scholarly journals A GOOD LIFE? CRITICAL FEMINIST APPROACHES TO INFLUENCER ECOLOGIES

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoë Glatt ◽  
Sarah Banet-Weiser ◽  
Sophie Bishop ◽  
Francesca Sobande ◽  
Elizabeth Wissinger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms are widely lauded as bastions for entrepreneurial self-actualisation and creative autonomy, offering an answer to historically exclusive and hierarchical creative industries as routes to employability and success. Social media influencers are envied by audiences as having achieved ‘the good life’, one in which they are able to ‘do what they love’ for a living (Duffy 2017). Despite this ostensive accessibility and relatability, today’s high-profile influencer culture continues to be shaped by ‘preexisting gendered and racial scripts and their attendant grammars of exclusion’ as Sarah Banet-Weiser (2012) argued in the early days of socially mediated entrepreneurship (p. 89; see also Bishop, 2017). In Western contexts only a narrow subset of white, cis-gender, and heterosexual YouTubers, Instagrammers, TikTokers, and Twitch streamers tend to achieve visibility as social media star-creators, and celebratory discourses of diversity and fairness mask problematic structures that exclude marginalized identities from opportunities to attain success. A key aim of this panel is thus to draw attention to marginalized creator communities and subjectivities, including women, non-white, and queer creators, all of whom face higher barriers to entry and success. More broadly, by taking seriously both the practices and discourses of social media influencers, the panellists aim to challenge popular denigrations of influencers as vapid, frivolous, or eager to freeload. We locate such critiques in longstanding dismissals of feminized cultural production (Levine, 2013) and argue, instead, that we need to take seriously the role of influencers in various social, economic, and political configurations.

scholarly journals Multi-Platform Social Media Use: Little Evidence of Impacts on Adult Well-Being

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Lohmann ◽  
Emilio Zagheni
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Using Data

Social media have become a near-ubiquitous part of our lives. The growing concern that their use may alter our well-being has been met with elusive scientific evidence. Existing literature often simplifies social media use as a homogeneous process. In reality, social media use and functions vary widely depending on platform and demographic characteristics of users, and there may be qualitative differences between using few versus many different social media platforms. Using data from the General Social Survey, an underanalyzed data source for this purpose, we characterize intensive social media users and examine how differential platform use impacts well-being. We document substantial heterogeneity in the demography of users and show that intensive users tend to be young, female, more likely to be Black than Hispanic, from high SES backgrounds, from more religious backgrounds, and from families with migration background, compared to both non-users and moderate users. The intensity of social media use seemed largely unrelated to well-being in both unadjusted models and in propensity-score models that adjusted for selection bias and demographic factors. Among middle-aged and older adults, however, intensive social media use may be slightly associated with depressive symptoms. Our findings indicate that although mediums of communication have changed with the advent of social media, these new mediums are not necessarily detrimental to well-being.

scholarly journals Measurement Schmeasurement: Questionable Measurement Practices and How to Avoid Them

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Kay Flake ◽  
Eiko I Fried
Keyword(s):  
Construct Validity ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Replication Studies ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Rigorous Research ◽  
Statistical Conclusion ◽  
Measurement Practices

In this paper, we define questionable measurement practices (QMPs) as decisions researchers make that raise doubts about the validity of the measures, and ultimately the validity of study conclusions. Doubts arise for a host of reasons including a lack of transparency, ignorance, negligence, or misrepresentation of the evidence. We describe the scope of the problem and focus on how transparency is a part of the solution. A lack of measurement transparency makes it impossible to evaluate potential threats to internal, external, statistical conclusion, and construct validity. We demonstrate that psychology is plagued by a measurement schmeasurement attitude: QMPs are common, hide a stunning source of researcher degrees of freedom, pose a serious threat to cumulative psychological science, but are largely ignored. We address these challenges by providing a set of questions that researchers and consumers of scientific research can consider to identify and avoid QMPs. Transparent answers to these measurement questions promote rigorous research, allow for thorough evaluations of a study’s inferences, and are necessary for meaningful replication studies.

scholarly journals Facebook and a Fair Trial: Caution, Challenge and Contradiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-151
Author(s):  
Kate Tubridy
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Digital Communication ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Fair Trial ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
High Profile ◽  
To Receive

This article explores the often fraught intersections between social media, fair trial principles and community engagement with high-profile crimes. Specifically, a detailed analysis is undertaken of the Facebook response to the arrest of Adrian Ernest Bayley for the murder of Ms Gillian (Jill) Meagher in Victoria, Australia in 2012. As one of the first Australian crimes to receive a significant social media response, this research provides empirical insights into the dynamic and evolving relationship between social media, the community and criminal trials. By drawing on a critical discourse analysis of over 3,000 comments on the R.I.P Jill Meagher Facebook page, this article identifies and critiques a ‘Discourse of Challenge’ in which digital communication enabled the reinterpretation of legal principles. Further, this article provides empirical insights into the meaning-making processes of Facebook discourses and focuses on how fair trial principles are contested on Facebook in novel and, at times, contradictory, ways.  

China’s “Cancer Villages”: The Social, Political, and Economic Contexts of Pollution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Lora-Wainwright
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Polluting Firms ◽  
Politically Active

Chapter 2 examines the emergence of China’s “cancer villages”—village-sized clusters of high cancer incidence—and their significance. It overviews how media accounts discursively shaped their social, political and epistemological nature. It develops a typology of cancer villagers based on a close analysis of a selected number of cases examined in recent qualitative research (Chen et al 2013). These relatively high-profile, politically active cases provide a useful background against which to compare the less visibly active case studies examined in later chapters. They illustrate a broader range of activist practices, but they also show that such strategies are often ineffective. Ultimately, these examples suggest that “cancer villages” are not an epidemiologically uncontested label but rather a cultural, social, economic and political phenomenon. Further, they prove that scientific evidence is not the most important element in gaining redress. Rather, it is socio-economic contexts, the persistence of the local population’s complaints and their ability to threaten social stability which largely determines the ways in which polluting firms and the local government may respond. This point is further supported by the book’s three case studies, in which scientific evidence plays a relatively minor role in villagers’ reckonings about environmental health effects and in their demands for redress.

Artists playing music while undergoing brain surgery: A look into the scientific evidence and the social media perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 196 ◽  
pp. 105911
Author(s):  
Alba Scerrati ◽  
Stefania Labanti ◽  
Giorgio Lofrese ◽  
Lorenzo Mongardi ◽  
Michele Alessandro Cavallo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Brain Surgery ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Measurement Schmeasurement: Questionable Measurement Practices and How to Avoid Them

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-465
Author(s):  
Jessica Kay Flake ◽  
Eiko I. Fried
Keyword(s):  
Construct Validity ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Replication Studies ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Rigorous Research ◽  
Statistical Conclusion ◽  
Measurement Practices

In this article, we define questionable measurement practices (QMPs) as decisions researchers make that raise doubts about the validity of the measures, and ultimately the validity of study conclusions. Doubts arise for a host of reasons, including a lack of transparency, ignorance, negligence, or misrepresentation of the evidence. We describe the scope of the problem and focus on how transparency is a part of the solution. A lack of measurement transparency makes it impossible to evaluate potential threats to internal, external, statistical-conclusion, and construct validity. We demonstrate that psychology is plagued by a measurement schmeasurement attitude: QMPs are common, hide a stunning source of researcher degrees of freedom, and pose a serious threat to cumulative psychological science, but are largely ignored. We address these challenges by providing a set of questions that researchers and consumers of scientific research can consider to identify and avoid QMPs. Transparent answers to these measurement questions promote rigorous research, allow for thorough evaluations of a study’s inferences, and are necessary for meaningful replication studies.

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