{"title":"How often are replication attempts questioned?","authors":"Przemysław G Hensel","doi":"10.1080/08989621.2023.2198126","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Fear of retaliation from the original authors and their allies has been proposed as one of the explanations for the paucity of replications. In the current paper the frequency of negative responses to replications in psychology, and the attention such responses attract, was measured in a series of three studies. Study 1 indicates that replications do not attract more negative mentions in literature than randomly selected non-replication papers unless they are independent and failed, in which case a small increase in negative mentions was noticed, although replications with open data were less likely to attract such mentions. Moreover, no difference in attracting comments on a post-publication peer-review site between replications and non-replication papers was found. Study 2 shows that independent failed and partially successful replications are more likely to attract stand-alone replies than non-replication papers, but the risk is still small and is reduced for replications with open data. Study 3 indicates that stand-alone replies to replications attract fewer citations and readers than the replications to which they respond. I conclude that scientists' unwillingness to criticize published research, cited as one of the reasons for the paucity of replications, also benefits replicators by largely shielding their research from questioning.</p>","PeriodicalId":50927,"journal":{"name":"Accountability in Research-Policies and Quality Assurance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accountability in Research-Policies and Quality Assurance","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2023.2198126","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/4/5 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MEDICAL ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Fear of retaliation from the original authors and their allies has been proposed as one of the explanations for the paucity of replications. In the current paper the frequency of negative responses to replications in psychology, and the attention such responses attract, was measured in a series of three studies. Study 1 indicates that replications do not attract more negative mentions in literature than randomly selected non-replication papers unless they are independent and failed, in which case a small increase in negative mentions was noticed, although replications with open data were less likely to attract such mentions. Moreover, no difference in attracting comments on a post-publication peer-review site between replications and non-replication papers was found. Study 2 shows that independent failed and partially successful replications are more likely to attract stand-alone replies than non-replication papers, but the risk is still small and is reduced for replications with open data. Study 3 indicates that stand-alone replies to replications attract fewer citations and readers than the replications to which they respond. I conclude that scientists' unwillingness to criticize published research, cited as one of the reasons for the paucity of replications, also benefits replicators by largely shielding their research from questioning.
期刊介绍:
Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance is devoted to the examination and critical analysis of systems for maximizing integrity in the conduct of research. It provides an interdisciplinary, international forum for the development of ethics, procedures, standards policies, and concepts to encourage the ethical conduct of research and to enhance the validity of research results.
The journal welcomes views on advancing the integrity of research in the fields of general and multidisciplinary sciences, medicine, law, economics, statistics, management studies, public policy, politics, sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, ethics, and information science.
All submitted manuscripts are subject to initial appraisal by the Editor, and if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees.