ORCID Profile
0000-0002-7133-5620
Current Organisation
University of California Merced
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Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 02-2021
Abstract: Self-correction—a key feature distinguishing science from pseudoscience—requires that scientists update their beliefs in light of new evidence. However, people are often reluctant to change their beliefs. We examined self-correction in action, tracking research psychologists’ beliefs in psychological effects before and after the completion of four large-scale replication projects. We found that psychologists did update their beliefs they updated as much as they predicted they would, but not as much as our Bayesian model suggests they should if they trust the results. We found no evidence that psychologists became more critical of replications when it would have preserved their pre-existing beliefs. We also found no evidence that personal investment or lack of expertise discouraged belief updating, but people higher on intellectual humility updated their beliefs slightly more. Overall, our results suggest that replication studies can contribute to self-correction within psychology, but psychologists may underweight their evidentiary value.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-11-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41562-021-01220-7
Abstract: Self-correction-a key feature distinguishing science from pseudoscience-requires that scientists update their beliefs in light of new evidence. However, people are often reluctant to change their beliefs. We examined belief updating in action by tracking research psychologists' beliefs in psychological effects before and after the completion of four large-scale replication projects. We found that psychologists did update their beliefs they updated as much as they predicted they would, but not as much as our Bayesian model suggests they should if they trust the results. We found no evidence that psychologists became more critical of replications when it would have preserved their pre-existing beliefs. We also found no evidence that personal investment or lack of expertise discouraged belief updating, but people higher on intellectual humility updated their beliefs slightly more. Overall, our results suggest that replication studies can contribute to self-correction within psychology, but psychologists may underweight their evidentiary value.
Publisher: Psychology Press
Date: 04-07-2011
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-09-2018
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-018-30248-5
Abstract: The potential for behaviours to spread via cultural transmission has profound implications for our understanding of social dynamics and evolution. Several studies have provided empirical evidence that local traditions can be maintained in animal populations via conformist learning (i.e. copying the majority). A conformist bias can be characterized by a sigmoidal relationship between a behavior’s prevalence in the population and an in idual’s propensity to adopt that behavior. For this reason, the presence of conformist learning in a population is often inferred from a sigmoidal acquisition curve in which the overall rate of adoption for the behavior is taken as the dependent variable. However, the validity of sigmoidal acquisition curves as evidence for conformist learning has recently been challenged by models suggesting that such curves can arise via alternative learning rules that do not involve conformity. We review these models, and find that the proposed alternative learning mechanisms either rely on faulty or unrealistic assumptions, or apply only in very specific cases. We therefore recommend that sigmoidal acquisition curves continue to be taken as evidence for conformist learning. Our paper also highlights the importance of understanding the generative processes of a model, rather than only focusing solely on the patterns produced. By studying these processes, our analysis suggests that current practices by empiricists have provided robust evidence for conformist transmission in both humans and non-human animals. Arising from: Acerbi, A. et al . Sci. Rep . 6, 36068 (2016) 0.1038/srep36068 .
No related grants have been discovered for Paul Smaldino.