Why Do Some Psychology Researchers Resist Adopting Proposed Reforms to Research Practices? A Description of Researchers’ Rationales

Abstract

In response to the replication crisis, many psychologists recommended that the field adopt several proposed reforms to research practices, such as preregistration, to make research more replicable. However, how researchers have received these proposals is not well known because, to our knowledge, no systematic investigation into use of these reforms has been conducted. We wanted to learn about the rationales researchers have for not adopting the proposed reforms. We analyzed survey data of 1,035 researchers in social and personality psychology who were asked to indicate whether they thought it was acceptable to not follow four specific proposed reforms and to explain their reasoning when they thought it was acceptable to not adopt these reforms. The four reforms were preregistering hypotheses and methods, making data publicly available online, conducting formal power analyses, and reporting effect sizes. Our results suggest that (a) researchers have adopted some of the proposed reforms (e.g., reporting effect sizes) more than others (e.g., preregistering studies) and (b) rationales for not adopting them reflect a need for more discussion and education about their utility and feasibility.