The psychological reality of the learned "p < .05" boundary.

IF 3.4 2区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL

Cognitive Research-Principles and Implications Pub Date : 2024-05-03 DOI:10.1186/s41235-024-00553-x

V N Vimal Rao, Jeffrey K Bye, Sashank Varma

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Abstract

The .05 boundary within Null Hypothesis Statistical Testing (NHST) "has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move" (to quote Douglas Adams). Here, we move past meta-scientific arguments and ask an empirical question: What is the psychological standing of the .05 boundary for statistical significance? We find that graduate students in the psychological sciences show a boundary effect when relating p-values across .05. We propose this psychological boundary is learned through statistical training in NHST and reading a scientific literature replete with "statistical significance". Consistent with this proposal, undergraduates do not show the same sensitivity to the .05 boundary. Additionally, the size of a graduate student's boundary effect is not associated with their explicit endorsement of questionable research practices. These findings suggest that training creates distortions in initial processing of p-values, but these might be dampened through scientific processes operating over longer timescales.

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学会 "p < .05 "界限的心理现实。

零假设统计检验（NHST）中 0.05 的界限 "让很多人非常生气，并被广泛认为是一个错误的举动"（引用道格拉斯-亚当斯的话）。在此，我们将跳出元科学的争论，提出一个经验性的问题：0.05 的统计显著性界限在心理学上的地位如何？我们发现，心理科学专业的研究生在将 p 值与 .05 相联系时，会表现出边界效应。我们认为，这种心理边界是通过 NHST 的统计培训和阅读充斥着 "统计显著性 "的科学文献学习到的。与这一提议相一致的是，本科生对 .05 临界值并不表现出同样的敏感性。此外，研究生边界效应的大小与他们对有问题的研究实践的明确认可无关。这些研究结果表明，培训会造成对 p 值的初始处理失真，但这些失真可能会通过在较长时期内运作的科学过程得到抑制。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Cognitive Research-Principles and Implications PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL-

CiteScore

6.80

自引率

7.30%

发文量

审稿时长

25 weeks