Preventing statistical errors in scientific journals

There is evidence for a high prevalence of statistical reporting errors in psychology and other scientific fields. These errors display a systematic preference for statistically significant results, distorting the scientific literature. There are several possible causes for this systematic error prevalence, with publication bias as the most prominent one. Journal editors could play an important role in preventing statistical errors in the published literature. Concrete solutions entail encouraging sharing data and preregistration, and using the automated procedure “statcheck” to check manuscripts for errors

Mental disorders as complex networks:An introduction and overview of a network approach to psychopathology

Mental disorders have traditionally been conceptualized as latent variables, which impact observable symptomatology. Recent alternative approaches, however, view mental disorders as systems of mutually reinforcing symptoms, and utilize network models to analyze the structure of these symptom-symptom interactions. This paper gives an introduction to and overview of the network approach to psychopathology, as it has developed over the past years

Statistical reporting inconsistencies in experimental philosophy

Experimental philosophy (x-phi) is a young field of research in the intersection of philosophy and psychology. It aims to make progress on philosophical questions by using experimental methods traditionally associated with the psychological and behavioral sciences, such as null hypothesis significance testing (NHST). Motivated by recent discussions about a methodological crisis in the behavioral sciences, questions have been raised about the methodological standards of x-phi. Here, we focus on one aspect of this question, namely the rate of inconsistencies in statistical reporting. Previous research has examined the extent to which published articles in psychology and other behavioral sciences present statistical inconsistencies in reporting the results of NHST. In this study, we used the R package statcheck to detect statistical inconsistencies in x-phi, and compared rates of inconsistencies in psychology and philosophy. We found that rates of inconsistencies in x-phi are lower than in the psychological and behavioral sciences. From the point of view of statistical reporting consistency, x-phi seems to do no worse, and perhaps even better, than psychological science