Not all social psychology studies are reproducible, as recent research has demonstrated. While the scientific field is facing a bit of a problem, many researchers are also seeing new opportunities in the resulting debate. "It leads to science in action. That's an exciting and challenging thing to be a part of."

Amsterdam-based psychologist Eric-Jan Wagenmakers conducted an important new study to demonstrate that smiling can make you happier. Unfortunately, the study was unable to prove this effect. “Science is under fire,” said Wagenmakers during an interview last week in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant. In it, he claims that the problems facing social psychology are just as bad as those facing other scientific disciplines, such as neuroscience.   

Vague speculations
Neuroscientist and psychologist Eric Maris, who works at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, has some choice words regarding the latter. According to him, vague speculations like these will get us nowhere. “We won’t be able to take the necessary strides forward until researchers like Wagenmakers can demonstrate through empirical research that certain neuroscientific phenomena cannot be reproduced. His speculations are at odds with the empirical attitude he demands of the researchers he expects to deliver reproducible results.”

‘His speculations are at odds with the empirical attitude he demands of the researchers he expects to deliver reproducible results.’

Maris would like to see Wagenmakers make proposals to improve the reproducibility of research results. “Instead of focusing on the results that aren’t reproducible.”

The neuroscientist has some proposals of his own. “The first step is to compile a list of reproducible phenomena that the scientific field can build on. In this regard, I share Wagenmakers’ view and recognise the value of replication studies. But I also believe we need to critically re-evaluate the workflows and methodologies used in the social sciences.”

Exciting and challenging
Professor of Social Psychology Daniël Wigboldus sees the growing interest in replication studies as a positive development. “It’s important for researchers to critically evaluate each other’s findings; replication studies play an important role in this. The debate surrounding the importance of experimental reproducibility and the use of statistics in our field is nothing new. It leads to science in action within the social psychology discipline. That’s an exciting and challenging thing to be a part of.”

Wigboldus believes that current digital developments can help improve research reliability. “The advent of various digital open access initiatives is creating new opportunities to reproduce studies and share methods and data on a large scale. Major international collaborations are in the works between various research teams.”

He is also happy with the growing number of researchers who are developing hypotheses and research ideas in advance. “It’s important for researchers to be respectful when discussing how their results are interpreted. There are countless reasons why the results of a specific study cannot be reproduced. We need to be just as careful with the conclusions we draw from replication studies as with the ones we draw from the original study.”