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Browse the failure-mode index

299 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures in Psychology. Search the index →

WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record compiled from open scholarly databases; the abstract is shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed, otherwise a short excerpt under fair use. Classifications are automated and approximate.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Sex Effects on Development of Brain Structure and Executive Functions: Greater Variance than Mean Effects

Lara M. Wierenga, Marieke Bos, Fabienne van Rossenberg et al. · 2019 · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Although male brains have consistently reported to be 8-10% larger than female brains, it remains not well understood whether there are differences between sexes (average or variance) in developmental trajectories. Furthermore, if sex…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

How reliable are gray matter disruptions in specific reading disability across multiple countries and languages? insights from a large‐scale voxel‐based morphometry study

Katarzyna Jednoróg, Artur Marchewka, Irène Altarelli et al. · 2015 · Human Brain Mapping

The neural basis of specific reading disability (SRD) remains only partly understood. A dozen studies have used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to investigate gray matter volume (GMV) differences between SRD and control children, however,…

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Negative / Null Result ReportPsychology

Middle ground approach to paradox: Within- and between-culture examination of the creative benefits of paradoxical frames.

Angela K.‐Y. Leung, Shyhnan Liou, Ella Miron‐Spektor et al. · 2017 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Thriving in increasingly complex and ambiguous environments requires creativity and the capability to reconcile conflicting demands. Recent evidence with Western samples has suggested that paradoxical frames, or mental templates that…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Disrupted neural processing of emotional faces in psychopathy

Oren Contreras‐Rodríguez, Jesús Pujol, Iolanda Batalla et al. · 2013 · Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Psychopaths show a reduced ability to recognize emotion facial expressions, which may disturb the interpersonal relationship development and successful social adaptation. Behavioral hypotheses point toward an association between emotion…

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Negative / Null Result ReportPsychology

Pilot Assessment and Survey of Syrian Refugees' Psychological Stress and Openness to Referral for Telepsychiatry (PASSPORT Study)

Hussam Jefee-Bahloul, Moustafa K. Moustafa, Fatma M. Shebl et al. · 2014 · Telemedicine Journal and e-Health

BACKGROUND: Given the scarcity of mental health resources available for refugees in areas of conflict, it is imperative to investigate interventions that would be accepted by the refugees. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study we surveyed…

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Negative / Null Result ReportPsychology

Effects of Intensive Mobile Happiness Reporting in Daily Life

Tamlin S. Conner, Katie Reid · 2011 · Social Psychological and Personality Science

Does intensive focus on happiness change the naturalistic experience of happiness over time? In a 2-week text-messaging experiment, young adult participants ( n = 162) reported their current happiness 1, 3, or 6 times daily. Examination of…

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Negative / Null Result ReportPsychology

Effectiveness of Cognitive Remediation and Emotion Skills Training (CREST) for Anorexia Nervosa in Group Format: A Naturalistic Pilot Study

Kate Tchanturia, Eli A. Doris, Caroline Fleming · 2014 · European Eating Disorders Review

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate a novel and brief skills-based therapy for inpatients with anorexia nervosa, which addressed 'cold' and 'hot' cognitions in group format. METHOD: Adult inpatients with anorexia nervosa participated in…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Enhancing perceptual and attentional skills requires common demands between the action video games and transfer tasks

Adam Oei, Michael D. Patterson · 2015 · Frontiers in Psychology

Despite increasing evidence that shows action video game play improves perceptual and cognitive skills, the mechanisms of transfer are not well-understood. In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task. In the current study, participants played one of four action games with varying speed, visual, and attentional demands for 20 h. We examined whether training enhanced performance for attentional blink, selective attention, attending to multiple items, visual search and auditory detection. Non-gamers who played the game (

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Attention bias modification: the Emperor's new suit?

Paul M.G. Emmelkamp · 2012 · BMC Medicine

A series of primarily laboratory-based studies found attention bias modification in socially anxious participants to lead to reduced anxiety. It is argued that the failure to replicate the positive results of attention bias modification in the study of Carlbring et al. may be due to reasons other than the application through the Internet. A number of controlled studies failed to replicate the positive effects of attention bias modification in clinically rather than subclinically socially anxious subjects. Given the lack of robust evidence for attention bias modification in clinically socially

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Replication FailurePsychology

Do measures commonly used in body image research perform adequately with African American college women?

Susan Kashubeck‐West, Angela D. Coker, Germine H. Awad et al. · 2013 · Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology

This study examines reliability and validity estimates for 3 widely used measures in body image research in a sample of African American college women (N = 278). Internal consistency estimates were adequate (α coefficients above .70) for…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

The architecture of psychological well‐being: A network analysis study of the Ryff Psychological Well‐Being Scale

Ana Blasco‐Belled, Carles Alsinet · 2022 · Scandinavian Journal of Psychology

The proliferation of mental health research is orienting its efforts towards the exploration of psychological well-being. One of the main burdens is the measurement challenges reported by the widely used Psychological Well-Being Scale…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

A randomized controlled trial of a smartphone-based well-being training in public school system employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Matthew J. Hirshberg, Corrina Frye, Cortland J. Dahl et al. · 2022 · Journal of Educational Psychology

s<.031 corrected except mindful action at follow-up). We found no evidence for elevated adverse events and the HMP was equally effective among participants with elevated baseline anxiety and depressive symptoms. These data suggest that the…

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Replication FailureOpen accessPsychology

Budging beliefs, nudging behaviour

Oliver Hauser, Francesca Gino, Michael I. Norton · 2018 · Mind & Society

Nudges have become a popular tool for behaviour change; but, some interventions fail to replicate, even when the identical, previously successful intervention is used. One cause of this problem is that people default to using some of or all of the previously-successful existing nudges for any problem—the “kitchen sink” approach. We argue that the success of an intervention depends on understanding people’s current behaviour and beliefs to ensure that any nudge will actually “budge” them from their current beliefs. We introduce the Beliefs–Barriers–Context model, with three components: understa

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Negative / Null Result ReportPsychology

A test of Hofstede's model of culture following his own approach

Michael Minkov, Anneli Kaasa · 2020 · Cross Cultural & Strategic Management

Purpose Recent studies exposed serious issues with Hofstede's popular model of culture, especially his uncertainty avoidance (UA) and masculinity-femininity (MAS–FEM) dimensions. However those studies did not focus on work-related issues…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Socioscientific Decision Making in the Science Classroom: The Effect of Embedded Metacognitive Instructions on Students' Learning Outcomes

Sabina Eggert, Frauke Ostermeyer, Marcus Hasselhorn et al. · 2013 · Education Research International

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of cooperative training strategies to enhance students' socioscientific decision making as well as their metacognitive skills in the science classroom. Socioscientific decision making refers to both “describing socioscientific issues” as well as “developing and evaluating solutions” to socioscientific issues. We investigated two cooperative training strategies which differed with respect to embedded metacognitive instructions that were developed on the basis of the IMPROVE method. Participants were 360 senior high school students who

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

The effects of time frames on self-report

Marta Walentynowicz, Stefan Schneider, Arthur A. Stone · 2018 · PLoS ONE

BACKGROUND: The degree to which episodic and semantic memory processes contribute to retrospective self-reports have been shown to depend on the length of reporting period. Robinson and Clore (2002) argued that when the amount of accessible detail decreases due to longer reporting periods, an episodic retrieval strategy is abandoned in favor of a semantic retrieval strategy. The current study further examines this shift between retrieval strategies by conceptually replicating the model of Robinson and Clore (2002) for both emotions and symptoms and by attempting to estimate the exact moment of

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Methods Dead-EndOpen accessPsychology

Estimation of minimal data sets sizes for machine learning predictions in digital mental health interventions

Kirsten Zantvoort, Barbara Nacke, Dennis Görlich et al. · 2024 · npj Digital Medicine

Artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize mental health care, but small dataset sizes and lack of robust methods raise concerns about result generalizability. To provide insights on minimal necessary data set sizes, we explore domain-specific learning curves for digital intervention dropout predictions based on 3654 users from a single study (ISRCTN13716228, 26/02/2016). Prediction performance is analyzed based on dataset size (N = 100-3654), feature groups (F = 2-129), and algorithm choice (from Naive Bayes to Neural Networks). The results substantiate the concern that small datasets

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Automatic versus Voluntary Motor Imitation: Effect of Visual Context and Stimulus Velocity

Ambra Bisio, Natale Stucchi, Marco Jacono et al. · 2010 · PLoS ONE

Automatic imitation is the tendency to reproduce observed actions involuntarily. Though this topic has been widely treated, at present little is known about the automatic imitation of the kinematic features of an observed movement. The present study was designed to understand if the kinematics of a previously seen stimulus primes the executed action, and if this effect is sensitive to the kinds of stimuli presented. We proposed a simple imitation paradigm in which a dot or a human demonstrator moved in front of the participant who was instructed either to reach the final position of the stimul

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Replication FailureOpen accessPsychology

Learning-by-Teaching Without Audience Presence or Interaction: When and Why Does it Work?

Andreas Lachner, Vincent Hoogerheide, Tamara van Gog et al. · 2021 · Educational Psychology Review

Abstract Teaching the contents of study materials by providing explanations to fellow students can be a beneficial instructional activity. A learning-by-teaching effect can also occur when students provide explanations to a real, remote, or even fictitious audience that cannot be interacted with. It is unclear, however, which underlying mechanisms drive learning by non-interactive teaching effects and why several recent studies did not replicate this effect. This literature review aims to shed light on when and why learning by non-interactive teaching works. First, we review the empirical lite

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Negative / Null Result ReportPsychology

A Practice-Based Professional Development Program to Support Scientific Argumentation From Evidence in the Elementary Classroom

Evan J. Fishman, Hilda Borko, Jonathan Osborne et al. · 2017 · Journal of Science Teacher Education

Considerable evidence suggests that dialogical interaction in the classroom promotes students’ scientific knowledge building and reasoning. Hence, scientific argumentation is recognized as a central component of the Next Generation Science…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Absence of structural brain changes from mindfulness-based stress reduction: Two combined randomized controlled trials

Tammi R. A. Kral, Kaley Davis, Cole Korponay et al. · 2022 · Science Advances

Studies purporting to show changes in brain structure following the popular, 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course are widely referenced despite major methodological limitations. Here, we present findings from a large, combined dataset of two, three-arm randomized controlled trials with active and waitlist (WL) control groups. Meditation-naïve participants ( n = 218) completed structural magnetic resonance imaging scans during two visits: baseline and postintervention period. After baseline, participants were randomly assigned to WL ( n = 70), an 8-week MBSR program ( n = 75)

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Theory-Based Interventions Combining Mental Simulation and Planning Techniques to Improve Physical Activity: Null Results from Two Randomized Controlled Trials

Carine Meslot, Aurélie Gauchet, B. Allenet et al. · 2016 · Frontiers in Psychology

Interventions to assist individuals in initiating and maintaining regular participation in physical activity are not always effective. Psychological and behavioural theories advocate the importance of both motivation and volition in interventions to change health behaviour. Interventions adopting self-regulation strategies that foster motivational and volitional components may, therefore, have utility in promoting regular physical activity participation. We tested the efficacy of an intervention adopting motivational (mental simulation) and volitional (implementation intentions) components to

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Replication FailureOpen accessPsychology

A two-lab direct replication attempt of Southgate, Senju and Csibra (2007)

Dóra Kampis, Petra Karman, Gergely Csibra et al. · 2021 · Royal Society Open Science

, 587-592. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01944.x)) has been widely cited as evidence for false-belief attribution in young children. Recent replication attempts of this paradigm have yielded mixed results: several studies did not replicate the original findings, raising doubts about the suitability of the paradigm to assess non-verbal action prediction and Theory of Mind. In a preregistered collaborative study including two of the original authors, we tested one hundred and sixty 24- to 26-month-olds across two locations using the original stimuli, procedure and analyses as closely as possible

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Negative / Null Result ReportPsychology

Human Performance Benefits of The Automation Transparency Design Principle

Gyrd Skraaning, Greg A. Jamieson · 2019 · Human Factors The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

OBJECTIVE: Test the automation transparency design principle using a full-scope nuclear power plant simulator. BACKGROUND: Automation transparency is a long-held human factors design principle espousing that the responsibilities,…

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Negative / Null Result ReportPsychology

Comparing learning from observing and from human tutoring.

Kasia Müldner, Rachel Lam, T. H. Michelene · 2013 · Journal of Educational Psychology

A promising instructional approach corresponds to learning by observing others learn (i.e., by watching tutorial dialogue between a tutor and tutee). However, more work is needed to understand this approach’s pedagogical utility. Thus, in…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

No ego-depletion effect without a good control task

Thomas Mangin, Nathalie André, Abdelrhani Benraïss et al. · 2021 · Psychology of sport and exercise

The ego-depletion effect refers to a temporary failure of self-control exertion after first performing an effortful task. This phenomenon has experienced a replication crisis in the past few years. In the present series of experiments, we…

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