Psychology Journals Research Articles

Replication Studies Using Secondary or Nonexperimental Datasets

Replication studies have been promoted as a means to investigate the fragility or robustness of findings from prior studies. However, less well known is that replication studies can be done with nonexperimental or secondary datasets and are not just for experimental studies. We present a framework of different types of replication studies with nonexperimental or secondary data and provide examples in the context of school psychology. We show that replication studies can be used as robustness checks, as a means of testing the generalizability of existing theories, and as a way of extending findings of prior studies. We advocate for the thoughtful use of replication studies and highlight some of the benefits of replications. IMPACT STATEMENT The replication rate for articles in school psychology journals (2011–2020) was 0.86%. Although replication efforts largely pertain to experimental studies, we discuss replication studies using secondary or nonexperimental datasets. We show a typology of four types of replication studies and provide examples in the context of school psychology research.

Robert Rosenthal (1933-2024).

Robert Rosenthal died on January 5, 2024, in Riverside, California, at the age of 90. Born March 2, 1933, in Giessen, Germany, just as the Nazis came to power, the young Bob-he always insisted that everyone call him "Bob"-and his family fled in 1939 to Rhodesia (a British African protectorate) before making it to New York and then Los Angeles. Bob's dissertation derived from the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). It compared projection in paranoid schizophrenic patients versus a normal control group after an experimental manipulation. Bob analyzed his dissertation pretest data (before the intervention) and found that his groups already differed in the direction that would support his expected result. Thus was launched the career and field of experimenter expectancy effects-"the Rosenthal effect." Saying that God also loved p < .06, Bob helped lead the charge against the ridiculous but long-standing practice whereby psychology journals would reject articles where significance testing did not reach the magical .05 level, regardless of the quality and importance of the research. With over 500 publications and hundreds of thousands of citations of his work, he forever transformed the fields of psychology and education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Practices in Data-Quality Evaluation: A Large-Scale Review of Online Survey Studies Published in 2022

In this study, I examine data-quality evaluation methods in online surveys and their frequency of use. Drawing from survey-methodology literature, I identified 11 distinct assessment categories and analyzed their prevalence across 3,298 articles published in 2022 from 200 psychology journals in the Web of Science Master Journal List. These English-language articles employed original data from self-administered online questionnaires. Strikingly, 55% of articles opted not to employ any data-quality evaluation, and 24% employed only one method despite the wide repertoire of methods available. The most common data-quality indicators were attention-control items (22%) and nonresponse rates (13%). Strict and unjustified nonresponse-based data-exclusion criteria were often observed. The results highlight a trend of inadequate quality control in online survey research, leaving results vulnerable to biases from automated response bots or respondents’ carelessness and fatigue. More thorough data-quality assurance is currently needed for online surveys.

Gender, Race, and Authorship in Criminological and Criminal Justice Journals: A New Look With an Old Result

There is a wealth of research that has tested faculty productivity in criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) journals over the past 30 years, although only a modest proportion of these studies have analyzed the gender of authors publishing in CCJ journals. Moreover, only a couple of studies have assessed the race of the authors in these journals, with their focus placed on either African American productivity or the comparison of non-White and White authors. The present study examines 1,836 journal articles in 14 journals from 2016 to 2018, including the top eight CCJ journals, the top three sociology and psychology journals, and the top three gender-focused journals in the area of crime and justice. We broke author productivity in these journals down by specific demographic categories and found that White men account for the majority of authors publishing in the CCJ journals, followed by White women. We also found that the advances for women authors found in some journals are primarily due to White women authors, as the production of all minority groups in the journals remains low regardless of gender.

The Impact of Personality on Creativeness and Concentration

Personality has a profound and wide-ranging effect on individuals. This article discusses the impact of personality on individual creativeness and concentration levels. By analyzing past articles in psychology journals, it was found that the Openness/Intellect factor among the Big Five factors is consistently correlated with creativeness, regardless of how it was measured. Extroversion is inconsistently correlated with creativeness, and exhibits significant correlations only when the task measures verbal creativity or the fluency of divergent thinking skills. Personality is also correlated with concentration levels. The conscientiousness factor among the Big Five factors is consistently positively correlated with concentration levels, while neuroticism is negatively correlated with concentration. All experiments conducted in the research papers use different methods to test their hypothesis, and the results vary slightly according to the scale and the measurements being used. This paper provides integrative evidence for further understanding of the effects of personality on creativity and concentration.

Understanding Ethnoracial Disparities and Advancing Mental Health Equity Through Clinical Psychological Science: Introduction to Special Issue

Mental health disparities persist in countries such as the United States and across the world. Research with disparity populations is underrepresented in mainstream clinical psychological journals, and existing science has not focused on group specific lived experiences. Achieving mental health equity requires examination of determinants of psychopathology and health disparities and personal and cultural attributes that promote mental health. Clinical psychological science ideally also encourages and values research with underrepresented minority and underserved populations, novel and underused study designs, and research produced by diverse scholars. Our special issue highlights research that considers systematically culture specific processes, examines not only individual- but also community-level factors that relate to psychopathology and mental-health care, and challenges structural limitations in the current literature. We review these articles that incorporate innovative and community engaged approaches and showcase the importance of diversity in researcher and research participant demographics and perspectives in the advancement of equity in clinical psychological science.

Positive Deviance Underlies Successful Science: Normative Methodologies Risk Throwing out the Baby With the Bathwater

Successful science needs deviant ideas that may challenge established norms. The last decade saw an unprecedented science-engineering project, with strict rules on preregistration, statistical testing, result-independent guaranteed publication, replication, and openness badging being enforced by psychological journals. These normative methodologies seek to prevent failure (negative deviance) rather than promote success (positive deviance), and run counter to the historical development of successful science. By narrowly focusing on research data, while avoiding theoretical bias, they are inadequate for tackling, often intractable, scientific problems. Instead, unconventional, exceptional, and even initially implausible hypotheses should be fostered. A novel connection is drawn between positive deviance and the unplanned, haphazard evolution of successful science. Hypotheses compete for the highest fitness while probing an ever-changing, infinitely wide, empirical and theoretical landscape. The winner constitutes the positive deviant, but always remains subject to future competition. Losing negative deviants, which may share characteristics with winners, become irrelevant, sometimes long after their inception, and eventually sink into oblivion. Normative methodologies aim to curb negative deviants at their source, but also cut off positive deviants and may freeze successful science. More room for deviance and a theory primacy are advocated, allowing research to generate discovery and innovation in psychological science.

'We are all in the same boat': a qualitative cross-sectional analysis of COVID-19 pandemic imagery in scientific literature and its use for people working in the German healthcare sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a significant challenge to professional responders in healthcare settings. This is reflected in the language used to describe the pandemic in the professional literature of the respective professions. The aim of this multidisciplinary study was to analyze the linguistic imagery in the relevant professional literature and to determine the identification of different professional groups with it and its emotional effects. A list of 14 typical, widespread and differing imageries for COVID-19 in form of single sentences (e.g., "Until the pandemic is over, we can only run on sight.") were presented to 1,795 healthcare professionals in an online survey. The imageries had been extracted from a qualitative search in more than 3,500 international professional journals in medicine, psychology and theology. Ratings of agreement with these imageries and feelings about them were subjected to factor analysis. Based on the list of imageries presented, it was possible to identify three factors for high/low agreement by experiences, and two factors for high/low induced feelings. Broad agreement emerged for imageries on "fight against the crisis" and "lessons learned from the crisis", while imageries on "acceptance of uncontrollability" tended to be rejected. Imageries of "challenges" tended to lead to a sense of empowerment among subjects, while imageries of "humility" tended to lead to a sense of helplessness. Based on the qualitative and subsequential quantitative analysis, several factors for imageries for the COVID-19 pandemic were identified that have been used in the literature. Agreement with imageries is mixed, as is the assessment of how helpful they are.

The problem of miscitation in psychological science: Righting the ship.

Scholarly citation represents one of the most common and essential elements of psychological science, from publishing research, to writing grant proposals, to presenting research at academic conferences. However, when authors mischaracterize prior research findings in their studies, such instances of miscitation call into question the reliability and credibility of scholarship within psychological science and can harm theory development, evidence-based practices, knowledge growth, and public trust in psychology as a legitimate science. Despite these implications, almost no research has considered the prevalence of miscitation in the psychological literature. In the largest study to date, we compared the accuracy of 3,347 citing claims to original findings across 89 articles in eight of top psychology journals. Results indicated that, although most (81.2%) citations were accurate, roughly 19% of citing claims either failed to include important nuances of results (9.3%) or completely mischaracterized findings from prior research altogether (9.5%). Moreover, the degree of miscitation did not depend on the number of authors on an article or the seniority of the first authors. Overall, results indicate that approximately one in every 10 citations completely mischaracterizes prior research in leading psychology journals. We offer five recommendations to help authors ensure that they cite prior research accurately. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Role of Affective Neuroscience in Audit Judgement and Decisions Making: A Systematic Literature Review for Auditing Research

This research aims to determine the connection of audit judgment and decision making with affective neuroscience. Systematic Literature Review explores the research of audit judgment and decision making being dominated by the role of cognitive issues in judgment and decision making, but only a few reviews about the role of affect. Thus, it is necessary to balance both affective and cognitive variables. This research reviews seven auditing articles that elaborate on the affective role in audit judgment and decision making, six articles related to Affective Neuroscience, mindful judgment and decisions from psychological journals and three additional articles that are important. Affective Neuroscience (of which the main premise is to produce affective labelling) helps the process of coding information that will provide benefits when the auditor undergoes training, in practice, the auditor’s work atmosphere can be more positive, and if the auditor faces negative conditions, the effect can still be mitigated so that the resulting judgment can be accepted by the environment. This analysis provides useful insights that can be explored by future research to gain a broad understanding of the relationship between affective neuroscience with audit judgment and decision making so it can support the relationship between social theories and Affective Neuroscience. Affective Neuroscience's premise can help in understanding given judgement and decision-making by the auditor.

Girls, Women, and Female Athletes in Sport Psychology: A Decade-Long Review of the Literature

The underrepresentation of female research participants, women, and girls has been highlighted as an issue of concern within a variety of research areas and disciplines across academia. More specifically, this lack of visibility has contributed to widening knowledge gaps regarding these populations while also perpetuating and strengthening existing inequities. Given these concerns, the purpose of this review was to explore whether similar imbalances could exist within the sport psychology literature and, if so, what future research projects might be completed to rectify these issues. To do so, all articles (n = 3,005) published between the years of 2011 and 2021 in five journals of sport psychology were assessed. Following an analysis of the relevant studies collected, it was found that more articles including all boys, men, and male athletes (n = 343) were published within this time frame compared with articles including exclusively girls, women, and female athletes (n = 155). Additionally, it also appeared that research working with girls, women, and female athletes was lacking: (a) in recreational sport, (b) at both young and older ages, and (c) within team sport contexts. Further, most of the studies assessed often conflated participant sex- and gender-descriptive terminology. As such, it is highly encouraged that researchers in sport psychology make greater strides to conduct purposeful and targeted research focusing on girls, women, and female athlete participants and their specific issues over the coming years.

Ghosting: Abandonment in the Digital Era

This entry synthesizes the multidisciplinary literature on ghosting published through late 2023 across psychological and social science journals. Search terms include “ghosting” and “online dating”. Both quantitative and qualitative studies are included. The rise in ghosting can be attributed to advancements in technology and the increased popularity of dating apps. It is defined as an abrupt one-sided ending, without explanation, of an established friendship/romantic or other communication connection. The prevalence of ghosting has increased, as reported by both ghosters (i.e., persons who stopped responding) and ghostees (i.e., persons who were “dumped”). Individuals characterized by dark triad traits (i.e., psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) are more likely than others to be ghosters. These individuals have a history of using ghosting as their preferred method of ending relationships without concern for its negative impact on ghostees or, indeed, on themselves. The psychological effects of ghosting can influence mental health, although most individuals ultimately find ways of coping.

Generic Language and Reporting Practices in Developmental Journals: Implications for Facilitating a More Representative Cognitive Developmental Science

ABSTRACT As in other subfields of psychology, developmental science faces a long-standing problem of limited diversity in research participants. This issue especially raises concerns when researchers make unwarranted broad claims about their results, such as using generic language that implies that a finding is unvarying and applies across participants and contexts. Variation in editorial practices may contribute to the extent to which generic language is used or how much information is provided about participant demographics. The present study expands on an existing corpus of articles published in developmental psychology journals and examines the extent to which generic language differed by journal and sample characteristics (such as racial/ethnic diversity or sample size). We observed widespread use of generic language: 73% of articles included at least one generic statement in article components that were coded (i.e. titles, highlights, and abstracts). However, differences across journals were observed: Articles published in Developmental Science and JECP (which require authors to include short research highlights) tended to have higher rates of generic language than articles published in Child Development and Developmental Psychology (which did not require highlights). Articles that fully reported sample race and ethnicity also included fewer generic statements to describe their results than articles with more incomplete reporting. We conclude by highlighting the importance of editorial policies in shaping scholarship, as well as challenges and opportunities for researchers to consider when reporting demographic information in a global field and clearly and accurately communicating the importance of research findings.

Preserving privacy in the era of openness: Commentary on open science requirements for identifiable data in psychological science journals.

Psychological science journals are increasingly adopting open science (OS) policies (e.g., Transparency and Openness Promotion) requiring researchers to make all data and materials publicly available in an effort to drive research toward greater transparency and accessibility. These policies certainly have many benefits to the scientific community and public in helping ensure the quality of published research. However, the Center for Open Science has not offered any explicit guidelines regarding when exceptions to OS policies should be made, with only vague guidelines offered such as "when ethical or legal constraints prevent it." We argue that these ambiguous policies may create bias in decisions made by journal editors as to whom and what type of research is granted exceptions. When journals are too rigid in their exception policies, this may unintentionally contradict OS's goals to create a more valid and ethical science. We argue that journals should never mandate identifiable data to be posted publicly as a publication prerequisite. Maintaining participant anonymity should always come before OS policies to (a) align with psychologists' primary obligation of maintaining participant confidentiality, (b) encourage participation from the broader population and more specifically from marginalized communities, and (c) maintain unbiased, representative, and valid data. From empirical and ethical insights, we offer several solutions to ease the tensions between OS and participant privacy during the data collection and publication process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Need Analysis Course Design: ESP Textbook Evaluation in The Psychology Faculty

This study aims to describe the 'need analysis' of English for Psychology courses and evaluate the ESP textbook from the point of view of the textbook users at the Faculty of Psychology. A need analysis survey in learning ESP and ESP textbook evaluation was conducted and then analyzed quantitively. The data sources of this research were students of the Faculty of Psychology who were taken by purposive sampling, which amounted to 20 people already in the 4th, 6th, and 8th semesters, the head of the Psychology department, and three lecturers in the Psychology Faculty. The data collection used was a questionnaire and documentation. The data is in the form of questionnaire results and interviews. Documentation technique is used in collecting data, while analysis technique is used in analyzing data, namely reduction, data display, and drawing conclusions and verification. The study results show that language skill materials are crucial for future Psychology students.&#x0D; Regarding speaking skills, students primarily require resources for conversing with current issues that are up-to-date. Regarding the students' need to access psychology journals and textbooks, writing and skills in composing scientific articles, reports, and lab documents are essential. However, the study reveals dissatisfaction among Psychology students with the current ESP textbook, particularly in appearance, visuals, design, layout, and writing materials. Despite some elements meeting their needs, such as layout, content, exercises, and speaking resources, improvements are needed in certain areas. Consequently, it is recommended that the ESP textbook be enhanced to better cater to these requirements, and future researchers undertaking similar studies should consider this focus on English for Specific Purposes (ESP).

Paper mills: a novel form of publishing malpractice affecting psychology

We first describe the phenomenon of the academic paper mill, a kind of large-scale fraud in which authors pay to have work published in reputable journals. We give examples of some known paper mills and discuss ‘red flags’ that characterise their outputs. Most of the early examples were in biomedical and computational sciences and so paper mills are less familiar to many psychologists. In the next section, we describe a broker company/paper mill, Tanu.pro, discovered by the first author, which was identified by the use of fake email addresses. This paper mill placed six outputs in the Journal of Community Psychology, a reputable journal from a mainstream publisher. We look in detail at these papers and describe the features that confirm that malpractice was involved in publication. In five cases there was circumstantial evidence of tampering with the peer review process coupled with lack of editorial oversight. These papers have now been retracted. In a final section, we discuss the need for editors of psychology journals to be aware of potential targeting by paper mills and recommend editorial procedures to counteract these.

A systematic review of mixed methods studies published in six school psychology journals: Prevalence, characteristics, and trends from 2011 to 2020

AbstractMixed methods (MM) designs have gained more recognition in psychology in recent years due to the complementary strengths of integrating both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The central elements of a MM design can be particularly useful in the field of school psychology, where both generalizations of group characteristics and exploration of individual perspectives are valued. Given the advantages of MM and their potential benefits in school psychology research, it is important to know the extent to which MM studies are published in school psychology journals and the general characteristics of such studies. This study examined articles published from 2011 to 2020 in six well‐known school psychology journals to (a) document the prevalence of MM articles published in each journal and in each year, (b) examine the characteristics of the identified MM studies, and (c) explore possible trends of MM publications in the 10‐year period. Findings revealed that although there is a significant increasing trend of MM studies published from the first 5 years (2011–2015) to the second 5 years (2016–2020), the percentage of MM studies is still very small in the journals assessed. Explanations, future study directions, and practical implications are provided to call for more attention and effort in facilitating the training and application of MM research.

Review of participatory research assent procedures in school psychology

AbstractIn the realm of psychology and related fields, like school psychology, obtaining informed consent from clients or participants who are 18 years old or older is mandatory for researchers. However, if the individuals are below 18 years old or under a conservatorship, their assent is crucial even if their parent or legal guardian has provided formal consent. Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of assent during research, there is a lack of research and guidelines on how to obtain it effectively. To bridge this gap, we conducted a review and created a summary of research published in school psychology journals on gaining assent during research studies. The articles were categorized based on the experimental design, population, and level of assent described. Our findings offer a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on gaining assent in school psychology, which will enhance transparency in research methods.

Exponential authorship inflation in neuroscience and psychology from the 1950s to the 2020s.

How many researchers does it take to publish an article in top journals in neuroscience and psychology? Manually coding 42,580 articles spanning 1879-2021 from 32 journals, we examined the evolution of authorship size and its rate of change. Moreover, we assessed the driving forces behind these changes. We found that, starting from the 1950s but not earlier, the average authorship size per article in neuroscience and psychology has increased exponentially, growing by 50% and 31% over the last decade and reaching a record high of 10.4 and 4.8 authors in 2021, respectively. Single-authored articles have become a rarity today, particularly in primary research articles: 1.7% in neuroscience and 2.2% in psychology in 2019-2021 (vs. 5.7% and 11.2% in review articles). With the withering of sole authors rises a new type of authorship, group authors (e.g., a consortium). Group authorship was rare before 2000, but in 2019-2021, it appeared in 4.1% of articles in neuroscience, mostly in genetics, neuroimaging, and disease-outnumbering single-authored articles for the first time-and 0.7% in psychology, mostly in developmental and clinical research. The exponential inflation in authorship size could not be attributed to behaviors of professional editors in profit-oriented journals but aligns with a hybrid epistemic-behavioral-cultural account-an account that integrates multidimensional factors, including increased research complexity, the benefits of collaboration, the rise of government-funded research, changing norms in authorship practices, and biased incentives in evaluation. These findings suggest troubling implications for research reproducibility, innovations, equity/diversity, and ethics, calling for policy deliberations to address potential negative ramifications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Are replications mainstream now? A comparison of support for replications expressed in the policies of social psychology journals in 2015 and 2022

A decade ago, replications were typically not conducted and appreciated in social psychology, although replications play a central role in ensuring trust in scientific fields. Without systematic replication efforts, it is not clear whether findings are trustworthy. As journals can function as gatekeepers for publications, they can influence whether researchers conduct (and publish) replications. Yet, the scholarly culture in social psychology might have changed over the last decade because numerous highly visible studies did not replicate past findings. In light of these insights and the resulting learning opportunities for the field, we predicted an increase in the expressed support for replications in the policies of social psychology journals from 2015 (i.e., the year the replication problem became widely known) to 2022. We coded whether and how replications were mentioned in the author guidelines on the websites of social psychology journals (N = 51). As expected, replications were welcomed more often in 2022 (25%) than they were in 2015 (12%), but they were not mentioned on the websites of most journals (71% in 2022 vs. 82% in 2015). An exploratory analysis suggested that journals that expressed support for replications on their websites were also more likely to publish articles about replication. Further, exploratory analyses of the journals’ TOP factors indicated similar rates of support for replications as for other rigor and transparency promoting policies. In sum, our findings suggest that appreciation for replication has increased, but is not yet part of mainstream culture in social psychology.