In
2015, the University of Virginia led a new Reproducibility Project that
repeated 100 classic psychological studies and they were only able to successfully
replicate one-third of them.
But
the article goes on to allow for the possibility that one of the factors
causing reproducibility failures could be the passage of time. Specifically, in 1988, a study was done which
concluded that our facial expressions can influence our mood - so the more we
smile the happier we'll be.
The
stimuli for the experiment was a Far Side
comic by Gary Larson. I'll bet you have
never heard of it or him. Humor has
changed quite a bit since the 80's so I wouldn't be at all surprised if the
experiment could be replicated now, but only with a contemporary comic.
The failed
University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands replication study also had a problem
of its own - subject bias. As with most
psychology studies it used psychology students for the sample. And since this was a classic research study,
they may have already been familiar with it.
So
what do you think? Does this invalidate
the results of the initial study? Which
issue concerns you more? Would you use
the results? If so, how? Have you seen other evidence supporting the
basic thesis that facial expressions can influence mood?
(2016,
September 26) MacDonald, F. Two More Classic Psychology Studies Just Failed The
Reproducibility Test. sciencealert.com Retrieved September 11, 2017, from
https://www.sciencealert.com/two-more-classic-psychology-studies-just-failed-the-reproducibility-test
19 comments:
Hello everyone,
Considering all the different research bias that are discovered in present day, I don’t believe they constitute any discrediting of the original experiment done in 1988. If the study was done and the results were accepted, the results should be validated. However, with that being said, replications of studies done today should be scrutinized further. Criteria like sample size and demographics are not being looked at under a magnifying glass. Like the article Psychology Secrets: Most Psychology Studies Are College Student Biased suggests, samples taken from undergraduate colleges don’t represent the “average American”. They represent exactly what they are, undergraduate college students. What concerns me is the fact that scientific journals continue to accept the studies despite a biased sample. I don’t point the finger or blame the authors of the studies, mainly because I believe they are working with what they have. I can’t think of a single person (that I personally know) who enjoys being a part of studies and focus groups. People these days don’t want to be bothered and feel it’s a waste of time. This attitude shift is detrimental to the scientific community because the future of experiments depends on the participation of people with all different types of demographics/psychographics.
Hi everyone,
In my opinion, if a research fails the reproducibility test, we can not use it anymore. The first reason is passage of time. Different time period or generations, people will have different thoughts and actions. We can not use the research done in 1988 to express the people in 2017 now. People are changing all the time because of their age or experience in life. Actually, all research has it bias. However, in the article “Psychology Secrets: Most Psychology Studies Are College Student Biased” shows that college students are the main sample in a psychology study. Sometimes, college students can not represent all Americans. Although use college students to finish studies will save time and money, research should improve their sample to make it more reliable. Actually, I didn’t read article about facial expressions can influence mood before. I searched online, one article from New York Times point out that he physiology of facial expression as a cause of emotions in its own right.
Jinjin Lu
Hello everyone,
In order to enhance the reliability of research, results should be reproducible. The researcher cannot assume that “all things are equal”. Sometimes, people assume without justification that the background conditions have remained the same at different times or different locations. However, the truth is current conditions may not be the same as what is was several years ago. Therefore, reproducibility makes the research more reliable and informative. Nevertheless, we cannot guarantee that the research that is reproducible must be correct. There is other fallacy that may occur in the research, such as insufficient sample, false analogy or gratuitous assumption. For example, college students are insufficient sample and cannot represent other people. Only college students are logically unsounded to establish a general conclusion. When people choose a sample to conduct a research, they have to point out that the sample is representative of all people.
Siqi Xu
The first study intends to prove that our facial expressions can influence our mood. The research supports this idea by saying that in the study subjects were asked to read an old comic book while they held a pen in their mouth that would facilitate the muscles that are associated with smiling. However, when this study was replicated the results were not the ones expected. First, because it was a new generation that could have not been familiar with the comic book and second because there is only a slim correlation between facial expression and mood. The issue that impacted me the most was that these type of research are bias because the subjects of the sample, mainly psychology major college students, do not represent the entire US population. I understand that it is convenient, yet it is concerning that the results could vary heavily.
I found another article in The New York Times that talks about other factors that have to be considered when believing that facial expressions can change one’s mood completely. It debates “over what physiological mechanisms might be involved, as well as just how important the phenomenon is in emotional life” (Goleman). http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/18/science/a-feel-good-theory-a-smile-affects-mood.html?pagewanted=all
I think we should redo the test multiple times with different samples before we make the final decision about the research. Suppose most of the tests fail to reproduce the same result, we can no longer use the initial study. On the other hand, suppose the future retesting keep failing. I'm afraid that I can't trust most of the researches anymore. At last, I won't use any data if most of their re-tests fail to achieve the same result.
I never noticed that facial expressions can influence mood. I always think mood can influence facial expressions.
Yucheng Wu
Honestly, I didn't read any academic or scientific articles that clearly point out how facial expressions influence mood. I think facial expressions are a sort of phisical motions that are effected by one's mood. Also, using college students as the experiment sample only reflects a group of people's attitude. I may support the results since I'm in the similar age as the sample, but I won't use the results in own research assignments. In order to do the research equally, it's better to use random sampling rather than investigate a specific group of people. Although it will cost higher, the results are more persuasive.
Shixiong Yang
Hi,
As the topic stated “Can you use research that failed the reproducibility test,” and I think we shouldn’t. As we talked about in class, there are many different kinds of biases, and some are considering of lying. If there is an experiment that we’ve never heard of, which means it never showed to the public, any results come from that test I doubt it. Scientists would shift the result to match the idea they advocate. Only selecting college undergraduate students as the participants for a study is also a bias, and there is only 30% of the college of the States, they don’t represent the average. There are 70% left, which is a huge amount of people, who are not college graduated. In the future, I think I would consider more about what kind of data should I look at because some data might be fake, and some can’t represent the situation well enough. I believe that many researchers still put many efforts on finding good samples, but what’s the point if we all continuing using those wrong data and without realizing it?
Chenlu Ding
I do believe that the results should be invalidate for two reasons. First, the study done in 1988 should not apply today’s researches since things has changed dramatically in 20 years. Moreover, the subject of the old study are bias as quoted “most psychology studies it used psychology students for the sample. And since this was a classic research study, they may have already been familiar with it”. With the two reasons above, I don't think the researches are reproducible and should be applied in today’s research studies.
Because this research study was done in 1988 when there were different standards for what was acceptable it should not be invalidated. If that test was done today though and it cannot be reproduced constantly then it should be invalidated. The reason being is that today we have different standards for testing and can in most cases debated which research studies are acceptable and which ones aren’t. An issue that I find the really concerning is the fact that the article “Psychology Secrets: Most Psychology Studies Are College Student Biased” exposed that these research studies are conducted by students who are majoring in psychology. Doing this is like having a room full of yes men. The students will most likely know how to answer certain questions of the study to provide favorable outcomes.
I think the most concerning about this study is the fact that it makes me question a lot of research I have read in the past. Subject Bias is inevitable in my opinion because at the end of the day there are very few who are willing to participate in studies. I have seen seen other studies suggesting that facial expressions influence mood, such as the study done at the University of Wisconsin: Can blocking a frown keep bad feelings at bay?. The study found that botox patients who are unable to make certain facial expressions had a harder time recognizing and having empathy for certain moods. I would use the results as a start to my research if I were interested in pursuing further readings into the findings.
Hi class!
Happy Monday! Hope all is well!!! With regard to the experiment on facial expressions, I have really never heard or read anything that has proven this to be true. However, I do agree with Yucheng’s comment, “I think we should redo the test multiple times with different samples before we make the final decision about the research” (See Post). After conducting the experiment multiple times with various groups of people, perhaps we could make an overall conclusion.
With regard to using college students as the sample, Professor Lehrer made a comment in class that I cannot stop thinking about. She stated that using college students as the sample is not a proper representation of the population at whole because the larger percentage of Americans do not attend college. How interesting! Also, in my opinion, college students do not represent a broad enough sample with regard to age or socio-economic class.
I look forward to speaking with you all tonight.
Best,
Grace
If a study has issues being reproduced, I think it raises a lot of questions and concerns. I believe that there are many factors that go into making results of an experiment valid and useful and consistency in the outcome is one of them. Simply testing something once is not enough. Facial expressions can definitely influence mood. It is similar to the "mood" of how questions are asked/worded that we discussed in class. If someone asks you something with a smile on their face vs. looking angry, I can't imagine this wouldn't raise some sort of bias. This relates to wanting to do what everyone else is doing which we discussed. If the person asking you something looks happy, you feel you should probably be happy too.
First of all, we should understand that all research is bias. This however does not mean that the research is invaluable for you to use for a marketing campaign. Although if you are reading it through a consumer point of view, then we should always be vigilant and try and see the underlining message for the research to come up with our own conclusions on how to use the information just given to us going forward when basing our new decisions and ideas off the data.
It is troubling to read that most of the research is being done on college students. I really feel like the internet surveys are the way to go nowadays. However, as for the solution as to getting people to actually fill out those things is beyond me. I would still use the research for a target market that’s dealing with college students. However, not much for anything else.
As for my personal feelings on if smiling more will affect the overall mode, as of right now no I don’t believe it, even though I do see a case for it. Before I make a decision, I want to see more studies with bigger population sizes.
I was surprised that most of the psychology survey was done by the university student. As we learned during the class, 30% of the Americans are go to University. So when the survey data comes from only among this 30%, than the data result cannot be reliable.
However, in my point of view, it could be a good result for the company when they select their target as late 10's to early 20's. Because the company can get an idea that what does university students think and also they can collect the preference data from their result. So it has both positive and negative effect. Consequently, we should have to be more critize about the data result rather than just accept the result.
Being that decades have passed between the time of the original studies and the reproductions thereof, it would seem the time factor should naturally play a role in the divergent outcomes. Conversely, according to developmental psychology studies at Vanderbilt University however, on the subject of facial expression and mood, empirical research shows that there is a provable correlation between the two. Known as the "Facial Feedback Hypothesis," one can bring about a subjective feeling of happiness by purposefully smiling. This is a biological trait that applies to most human beings, so the findings can be trusted. However, subject bias is an actual problem. The use of college students as test subjects, and the fact that most of these studies are conducted in the western hemisphere if not America itself, makes them hardly representative of the global population and therefore a reliable subset for broad-based assumptions. The underpinnings of using college students lie in their convenience/low cost, that they provide "good enough" data, and that it's simply tradition. The scientific community is doing itself a disservice by being so inclined to stick to what "works."
I think the answer is not black or white. I can think of situations where using past research would be absolutely appropriate and in some cases necessary, on the other hand in some cases it would be misleading and inaccurate to use research that fails the reproducibility test
So to answer this question we would have to evaluate the usage of such research material, on a case by case bases.
First,In some studies the use of past data is necessary. Therefore we could certainly use a research from the past (that failed the reproducibility test) to compare its findings with the results of current research to indicate changes over time.Here is a trivial example, "Two in ten american are shopping online (2000)“. Obviously this statistic is outdated and unless on its own, but if we use it to compare with current findings, it would allow us to show trends and prove that more americans shop online today than in "Survey finds that roughly eight-in-ten Americans are now online shoppers...When the Center first asked about online shopping in a June 2000 survey, just 22% of Americans had made a purchase online. In other words, today nearly as many Americans have made purchases directly through social media platforms as had engaged in any type of online purchasing behavior 16 years ago.”
However an old research (that fails the reproducibility test) shouldn’t be used to support a current argument. Getting back to the previous trivial example."Two in ten american are shopping online (2000)“. If a business owner used this research and made business decision based on its findings she would probably make the wrong decision, a decision that is not in sync with todays economy and consumer.
In conclusion, I think an research from the past can be used if you indicate that its results don’t match the results of current studies.
Adam N.
I do not think research that has failed the reproducibility test should be used. A new sample should always be tested. Regardless, the result will still be biased based on the subjects themselves. College students embody a specific portion of the population and they should not be universally accepted as all-inclusive representatives. The test should be conducted with a variation of samples. As a time period changes, the conditions both socially and culturally adapt with it and naturally the results will vary. I have previously read that facial expressions can influence mood, but these articles force me to question the validity of the data. Attached I have included an article from Scientific American, that discussed how "Our emotions are reinforced—perhaps even driven—by their corresponding facial expressions." (Wenner, 2009)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smile-it-could-make-you-happier/
I think it is not a straight forward answer to whether or not failed reproducibility test data should be used or not because there are some evidence that data has been and was extremely helpful and if not for data lives would be at stake.
Sometimes research cannot be reproduce for one reason or another. It is not always because the research is faulty analysis. Some can be because of improper hypothesis testing and other used improper statics when trying to recreate the research. There often misstates or incomplete understand of previous work by other.
Data can be manipulate and may ways to prove or disprove a specific result so the irony of the situation is that a lot research it not repeated because it is extremely expensive and the rate of getting the same results is very slim. Therefore we are using a lot of irreproducibility research and that is not a bad things if you understand the data analysis set and as long as the data is transparent.
Review bias norms before using the data, make sure you are aware of the data you are using.
I am Gen Z, and I agree that we have been raised with fear. The era we born is totally different from the past. We knew Internet when we were young, and this the main channel for us to get information. The thing about Internet is, you have to cautious about every word you put. We don’t have clearly image about 911, and all we know is from the Internet. We know how bad the Internet bullying/violence could be, so we tend to not express our ideas often compare to other gens. Also, it is interesting to see that my generation likes to delete the things they post on Internet, most of the time is because we are scared that the words we used previously might cause troubles. Gen Z is living at a peaceful time period, and all the violence we heard were through Internet, not directly. Maybe because Gen Z is still young, eventually they would become more open-minded, and express their ideas out loud.
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