Gender Picture Priming: It Works with Denotative and Connotative Primes

When physical objects or words are encountered, to what extent is their primary semantic meaning also accompanied by secondary social category associates of semantic meaning? Does such an effect occur without conscious control over the activation of secondary meaning as is true of primary meaning? Automatic priming of the social categories “female” and “male” was demonstrated in two experiments using picture and word stimuli as primes and targets. Experiment 1 used a mixed–modality priming design to provide a stringent test of priming. Primes were words consistent with gender–stereotypic roles (e.g., mechanic, hairdresser) or words containing gender–specific suffixes (e.g., congressman, congresswomen). Targets were pictures of male and female faces that communicated gender as primary meaning. Even though modalities were mixed, gender priming effects were obtained, with stronger effects with female than male primes. Having established the presence of gender priming with items that denote gender primarily (male/female faces), Experiment 2 included a broader set of pictures, using them both as primes and targets to explore the critical hypothesis that even when gender is not the primary meaning communicated by the picture, that mere association to gender leads to systematic and automatic activation of “maleness” or “femaleness.” Although, as expected, the strongest priming effects were observed with pictures that unambiguously denoted gender, the effect was also present for pictures that merely connoted gender through association (e.g., oven mitt vs. baseball mitt). The results are interpreted as evidence for the importance of social category knowledge in knowing and understanding.Psycholog

Sensitivity to Varying Gains and Losses: The Role of Self-Discrepancies and Event Framing

Three studies psychophysically measured people's discrimination among different sizes of monetary net gains or net losses. Participants imagined either gains or nonlosses (i.e., net gains) or losses or nongains (i.e., net losses). Participants discriminated more when the identical event was framed as the presence (gains and losses) versus the absence (nonlosses and nongains) of an outcome, presumably because the latter is harder to represent. Discrimination was enhanced when the motivational features of the imagined event were either both the same as or both different from a person's self-discrepancy. Discrimination was reduced when only one of the motivational features was different. A model of excitations, inhibitions, and disinhibitions between mental representation is suggested to account for these findings

An Open, Large-Scale, Collaborative Effort to Estimate the Reproducibility of Psychological Science

Reproducibility is a defining feature of science. However, because of strong incentives for innovation and weak incentives for confirmation, direct replication is rarely practiced or published. The Reproducibility Project is an open, large-scale, collaborative effort to systematically examine the rate and predictors of reproducibility in psychological science. So far, 72 volunteer researchers from 41 institutions have organized to openly and transparently replicate studies published in three prominent psychological journals in 2008. Multiple methods will be used to evaluate the findings, calculate an empirical rate of replication, and investigate factors that predict reproducibility. Whatever the result, a better understanding of reproducibility will ultimately improve confidence in scientific methodology and findings

Data from: Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science

This record contains the underlying research data for the publication "Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science" and the full-text is available from: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5257Reproducibility is a defining feature of science, but the extent to which it characterizes current research is unknown. We conducted replications of 100 experimental and correlational studies published in three psychology journals using high-powered designs and original materials when available. Replication effects were half the magnitude of original effects, representing a substantial decline. Ninety-seven percent of original studies had statistically significant results. Thirty-six percent of replications had statistically significant results; 47% of original effect sizes were in the 95% confidence interval of the replication effect size; 39% of effects were subjectively rated to have replicated the original result; and if no bias in original results is assumed, combining original and replication results left 68% with statistically significant effects. Correlational tests suggest that replication success was better predicted by the strength of original evidence than by characteristics of the original and replication teams