Replicability Crisis in Social Psychology: Looking at the Past to Find New Pathways for the Future

Over the last few years, psychology researchers have become increasingly preoccupied with the question of whether findings from psychological studies are generally replicable. The debates have originated from some unfortunate events of scientific misconduct in the field, and have reached a climax with the recent discovery of a relatively weak rate of replicability of published literature, leading to the so-called replicability crisis in psychology. The present paper is concerned with examining the issue of replicability in the field of social psychology. We begin by drawing a state of the art of the crisis in this field. We then highlight some possible causes for the crisis, discussing topics of statistical power, questionable research practices, publication standards, and hidden auxiliary assumptions of context-dependency of social psychological theories. Finally, we argue that given the absence of absolute falsification in science, social psychology could greatly benefit from adopting McGuire’s perspectivist approach to knowledge construction

Individual differences in perceived social desirability of Openness to experience: A new framework for social desirability responding in personality research

The extent to which response distortion – such as social desirability responding (SDR) – is present in self–report measures is an issue of concern and debate in personality research, as it may seriously impact such measures' psychometric indices. The present research aimed at using the social value framework to shed new light on SDR in self–report personality tests. Two studies tested the moderating role of individual differences in perceived social desirability of the Openness to Experience dimension for test–retest reliability and predictive validity of a typical Openness measure. Results support the hypothesized moderating role of perceived social desirability for improving test–retest reliability, providing the testing condition guarantees full anonymity (Study 1), and for predictive validity (Study 2). Findings are discussed with regards to SDR in personality research and the social value framework

Competion in Education

In this chapter we delineate how competition circulates through education. First, we show how competitive ideologies, values and norms are transmitted from society to educational institutions, in particular ideologies and values such as meritocracy, the belief in a fair free market and neoliberalism, as well as norms such as productivism and employability. Second, we review the competitive structures and climates within educational institutions that shape students’ values, goals and behaviors, in particular structures such as normative assessment, tracking and numerus clausus, as well as climates such as classroom climate, goal structures and error climates. Third, we report research that documents the impact of students’ competitive values, goals and behaviors on educational outcomes, from learning and achievement to social relations. Finally, we conclude by reflecting on how such a socialization of students may impact society in a feedback loop, either in terms of maintenance of the status quo or in terms of social change

When pursuing bad goals for good reasons makes it even worse: a social value approach to performance-avoidance goal pursuit

Consistently in achievement goal research, pursuing performance-avoidance goals has been associated with a decrease in achievement. Less is known to what extent this effect depends on the reasons underlying these goals’ endorsement. The present research uses a social value approach to assess how do performance-avoidance goals’ effects on achievement depend on the reasons anchored in social utility (goal endorsed in order to succeed) and in social desirability (goal endorsed in order to please one’s teachers). Based on five correlational samples meta-analyzed in Study 1, results showed that perceiving performance-avoidance goals as socially useful increased the negative effect of these goals on achievement. This moderating effect was replicated experimentally in Study 2. These findings support the relevance of studying achievement goal complexes and illustrate that performance-avoidance goals may lead to deleterious consequences even when endorsed for seemingly good reasons

La valeur sociale des explications causales (norme d internalité, jugements scolaires et registres de valeur)

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Buts d’accomplissement et valeur sociale : D’une approche individuelle à une perspective sociétale

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Achievement Goals: A Social Influence Cycle

International audience Achievement goals have been defined as the purpose of competence-relevant behavior. In this respect they connect one of the basic human needs, i.e., competence, to one of society's core values, i.e., achievement. We propose to look at achievement goals through the lens of social influence. We review both the influence that cultural, structural, and contextual factors have on achievement goal endorsement and the influence that endorsing achievement goals allows people to have within their social space. The review allows us to propose a circular model of the influence on and of achievement goals: The culture, social structures, and contexts that are typical of a certain society shape the specific environments in which individuals develop their achievement goals, which in turn has an influence on the expression and circulation of these achievement goals into society, in a social influence cycle. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 75 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates. </jats:p

An integrative model of scholastic judgments: Pupils’ characteristics, class context, halo effect and internal attributions

International audienceThis article proposes a model that integrates some of the determinants of scholastic judgment. The model is based on the assumption that a teacher's judgment in a particular discipline is influenced by different variables: the pupil's actual performance in the discipline, his/her actual performance in other disciplines (halo effect), the average performance of the class in the discipline (class context effect), the pupil's individual characteristics such as whether he/she has ever repeated a grade and the teacher's perception of the pupils' causal explanations. Furthermore, the model proposes that a teacher's perceptions are related to the pupil's spontaneous expression of causality, which in turn is influenced by the pupil's knowledge of the social value of causal explanations. In order to test the validity of the proposed model, the authors conducted a study in a real classroom setting on a population of 663 pupils from 38 classes (3rd grade) and their respective teachers. Path analyses showed that the theoretical model fit the data to a satisfactory extent. However, a comparison of the fit indexes of the theoretical model and two alternative models (one nonhierarchical and one hierarchical) showed that the initial theoretical model could be significantly improved by additional paths

How gender stereotypes on academic abilities contribute to the maintenance of gender hierarchy in higher education

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Of nice and mean: The personal relevance of others’ competence drives perceptions of warmth

Past research shows that when forming an impression of an interdependent person, perceivers are motivated to look for information relevant to their goals and interests. The present experiments examined what happens after this information- seeking stage and showed that the relevance of the target’s attributes for one’s goals and interests drives warmth impressions. Using both a scenario (Experiment 1) and realistic methodologies (Experiment 3), we showed that when the perceiver had to collaborate with a target, the more competent the target, the more perceivers anticipated success and the more the target came across as warm. By contrast, in a competition setting, the competence of the target negatively affected prospects of success and impressions of warmth. Experiment 2 further showed that the target’s competence drove warmth impressions only when perceivers attached a great value to the success of the task, suggesting that these inferences have a motivational underpinning