Why Do Some Psychology Researchers Resist Using Proposed Reforms to Research Practices? A Description of Researchers’ Rationales

In response to the “replication crisis” many psychologists recommended that the field adopt several proposed reforms to research practices (PRRPs), like preregistration, to make research more replicable. However, reception of PRRPs is not well known. We wanted to know the rationales researchers had for not using them. We analyzed data of 1,035 researchers in social and personality psychology from Motyl et al. (2017) who asked them to explain when they thought it was acceptable to not use four specific PRRPs: preregistering hypotheses/methods, making data publicly available online, conducting formal power analyses, and reporting effect sizes. Our results suggest that (a) adoption and use of PRRPs is quite varied and (b) rationales for not using them reflect a need for more discussion and education about the utility and feasibility of the proposed reforms.

针对“复制危机”，众多心理学家建议该领域采纳多项针对研究实践改革（PRRPs）的提案，例如预先注册等，以提高研究的可复制性。然而，对于PRRPs的接受度尚未得到充分了解。我们旨在探究研究者未采用这些改革措施的原因。我们分析了Motyl等人在2017年对来自社会与人格心理学领域的1,035名研究者所收集的数据，他们被要求解释在何种情况下认为不使用以下四种特定的PRRPs是可接受的：预先注册假设/方法、公开在线提供数据、进行正式功效分析以及报告效应量。我们的研究结果表明，（a）PRRPs的采用和使用存在显著差异；（b）未采用PRRPs的理由反映了对于提议改革措施效用与可行性的进一步讨论和教育的需求。