Abstract
Experimental philosophy (x-phi) is a young field of research in the intersection of philosophy and psychology. It aims to make progress on philosophical questions by using experimental methods traditionally associated with the psychological and behavioral sciences, such as null hypothesis significance testing (NHST). Motivated by recent discussions about a methodological crisis in the behavioral sciences, questions have been raised about the methodological standards of x-phi. Here, we focus on one aspect of this question, namely the rate of inconsistencies in statistical reporting. Previous research has examined the extent to which published articles in psychology and other behavioral sciences present statistical inconsistencies in reporting the results of NHST. In this study, we used the R package statcheck to detect statistical inconsistencies in x-phi, and compared rates of inconsistencies in psychology and philosophy. We found that rates of inconsistencies in x-phi are lower than in the psychological and behavioral sciences. From the point of view of statistical reporting consistency, x-phi seems to do no worse, and perhaps even better, than psychological science.
Highlights
Experimental philosophy (x-phi) is a young field at the intersection of philosophy and psychology that aims to make progress on philosophical questions by using experimental methods traditionally associated with the psychological and behavioral sciences [1,2].Those sciences are, undergoing a methodological crisis regarding the reproducibility and statistical correctness of experimental research [3,4,5,6];
One aspect of the methodological crisis in psychology is the high rate of reporting inconsistencies in the statistical analysis of data; roughly half of the published papers in psychology contain at least one inconsistent result where the reported p-value does not match the reported value and degrees of freedom of the test statistic
This paper investigated the prevalence of statistical reporting errors in x-phi, using the population of x-phi papers in the PhilPapers database up to September 2016
Summary
Experimental philosophy (x-phi) is a young field at the intersection of philosophy and psychology that aims to make progress on philosophical questions by using experimental methods traditionally associated with the psychological and behavioral sciences [1,2]. Those sciences are, undergoing a methodological crisis regarding the reproducibility and statistical correctness of experimental research [3,4,5,6];. Around one in eight papers contain at least one gross inconsistency, in which the reported p-value is significant, but the recalculated p-value based on the reported degrees of freedom and test statistic is not, or vice versa [7].
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