Always Conduct the “Simplest Valid Analysis”

July 10, 2024

This piece was cross-posted on the Transprent Replications blog. A significant and pretty common problem I see when reading papers in social science (and psychology in particular) is that they present a fancy analysis but don’t show the results of what we have named the “Simplest Valid Analysis” – which is the simplest possible way of analyzing the data that is still a valid test of the hypothesis in question. This creates two potentially serious problems that make me less confident in th...

Does money buy happiness, according to science?

February 28, 2024

By Spencer Greenberg and Amber Dawn Ace This piece first appeared on ClearerThinking.org on February 28, 2024, was edited on February 29, 2024, and appeared here with minor edits on March 27, 2024. Does money buy happiness? Intuitively, the answer is yes: common sense tells us that poverty and hardship make people unhappy. We can use money to buy a lot of things that might make us happier – things like a nicer home, fancier vacations, education for our children, or just the oppor...

Ten Skills Our Civilization Needs

October 10, 2020

Here are ten skills I believe our civilization needs, if we hope to create an amazing world instead of a dumpster fire. 1. Evidence evaluation Converging on a valid consensus about what’s true based on evidence/argument (e.g., being able to converge as a society on questions like "climate change real, how bad will it get if we don't act, and how quickly?"). 2. Coordination Developing and applying mechanisms to avoid collective action problems (e.g., working to make it in nobody’s in...

14 Signs A Study Is More Likely To Be Trustworthy

July 2, 2020

Science is incredible, but not all studies are reliable. In fact, they frequently aren't. So how can we tell when a study is trustworthy? Here are 14 signs to look for (for studies involving humans): 1) Large: a reasonably large number of study participants (20 per group is usually too small - the sample size should be large enough to give the study the power it needs to have a good chance of detecting an effect if the effect is indeed real) 2) Controlled: if the study is making claims to...

Facial self-awareness – a psychological difference

November 10, 2018

Here's a social characteristic that divides us that I think few people are aware of: how often, during a typical face-to-face conversation, do you pay attention to or visualize what your facial expressions must look like to the other person? I first became aware of this distinction during a conversation with friends, where we stumbled on the realization that we are very different from each other in this way. I am almost never aware of my face, whereas one of my friends is aware of it most of...