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285 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures in Psychology · Negative / Null Result Report. 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

Virtual reality training to improve socio‐emotional functioning in adolescents with developmental language disorders: A multiple baseline effectiveness study

E. G. J. M. Arts, Bram Orobio de Castro, Ellen Luteijn et al. · 2024 · Social Development

Abstract This study investigated whether interactive virtual reality (VR) training of social and emotional abilities (InterAction) improves socio‐emotional functioning of youth with developmental language disorders (DLD). To this end we conducted a multiple baseline intervention study, comparing participants’ social abilities during a baseline phase with their changes in abilities during the intervention and posttest phase. The training group consisted of 29 adolescents ( 20 boys, 9 girls ) with DLD from the Netherlands. The training consisted of nine, weekly (45–50 min) individual sessions wi

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Does baseline severity interact with the effects of psychotherapy for depression? A meta-analytic review

Pim Cuijpers, Mathias Harrer, Clara Miguel et al. · 2026 · Journal of Affective Disorders

It is not yet clear whether baseline severity is associated with the effects of psychotherapies. We examined baseline severity at the study level in a large sample of randomized controlled trials comparing psychotherapies against a control condition for the treatment of depression. We used an existing large database of randomized trials comparing psychotherapies for depression with control groups ( www.metapsy.org ). We converted baseline severity scores across different depression measures into a common metric. We ran bivariable and multivariable meta-regression analyses to examine the associ

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Training language models to be warm can reduce accuracy and increase sycophancy

Lujain Ibrahim, Franziska Sofia Hafner, Luc Rocher · 2026 · Nature

. Here we show how this can create a significant trade-off: optimizing language models for warmth can undermine their performance, especially when users express vulnerability. We conducted controlled experiments on five different language models, training them to produce warmer responses, then evaluating them on consequential tasks. Warm models showed substantially higher error rates (+10 to +30 percentage points) than their original counterparts, promoting conspiracy theories, providing inaccurate factual information and offering incorrect medical advice. They were also significantly more lik

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

On the universality of aesthetic preference and inference: a cross-cultural (Chinese–German) study

Chantal A. Miller, Keshun Zhang, Ronald Hübner · 2025 · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Abstract Aesthetic preferences vary widely among individuals and across cultures. These culture-specific aesthetic preferences are reflected in the environment, artistic behaviour, and consumer choices. People have the ability to infer the aesthetic preferences of others within their own culture through their Theory of Aesthetic Preferences , which is a subcategory of the Theory of Mind. An important question is whether people can also infer aesthetic preferences across different cultures. This study aimed to investigate aesthetic preference and aesthetic inference, as well as the underlying m

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Luminance noise impacts putative luminance components of visual evoked potentials but not chromatic components

Bellany Barbosa Lopes, Terezinha Medeiros Gonçalves Loureiro, Felipe André da Costa Brito et al. · 2025 · Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica

Abstract Introduction Pseudoisochromatic stimuli are widely used in psychophysical color vision testing and the features of the luminance noise present on these stimuli have been reported modifying the psychophysical chromatic discrimination. Objective The present study investigated how modifications in the luminance noise features (luminance contrast and number of luminance values) affect chromatic visual evoked cortical potentials (VECP) elicited by pseudoisochromatic gratings, aiming to evaluate the influence of luminance contrast and the number of luminance values in the pseudoisochromatic

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Dual Task Effects on Visual Attention Capacity in Normal Aging

Erika C. S. Künstler, Melanie D. Penning, Natan Napiórkowski et al. · 2018 · Frontiers in Psychology

Older adults show higher dual task performance decrements than younger adults. While this is assumed to be related to attentional capacity reductions, the precise affected functions are not specified. Such specification is, however, possible based on the “theory of visual attention” (TVA) which allows for modeling of distinct attentional capacity parameters. Furthermore, it is unclear whether older adults show qualitatively different attentional effects or whether they show the same effects as younger adults experience under more challenging conditions. By varying the complexity of the seconda

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Investigation of attachment social exclusion and risky behaviors in adolescents

Fahri Sezer, Aytekin Gürtepe · 2025 · BMC Psychology

Abstract The primary aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between attachment, social exclusion, and risky behaviors in adolescents. The sample comprised 463 adolescents, aged 13–18, attending various high schools in Turkey. Data were collected using three instruments: the Parent and Peer Attachment Inventory, the Ostracism (Social Exclusion) Scale for Adolescents, and the Risk Behaviors Scale. The results revealed a moderate negative correlation between attachment to mothers and risky behaviors, while a weaker negative correlation was observed between attachment to fathers an

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Executive functions, listening comprehension, and metacognitive processes in childhood: developmental profiles

Ζωή Μπαμπλέκου, Ελισάβετ Χρυσοχόου, Σμαράγδα Καζή · 2023 · Ψυχολογία: το Περιοδικό της Ελληνικής Ψυχολογικής Εταιρείας

Despite the established interplay between executive functioning and metacognition, evidence remains limited regarding children’s metacognitive monitoring in the form of offline performance estimates of their executive efficiency. Moreover, we know little about the relations among listening comprehension, executive functions, and metalinguistic awareness in childhood. The present study constitutes a first exploration of developmental profiles related to executive functioning, listening comprehension, and corresponding metacognitive-metacomprehension monitoring in periods marking their emergence

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Inter-trial priming does not affect attentional priority in asymmetric visual search

Liana eAmunts, Amit eYashar, Dominique eLamy · 2014 · Frontiers in Psychology

Visual search is considerably speeded when the target’s characteristics remain constant across successive selections. Here, we investigated whether such inter-trial priming increases the target’s attentional priority, by examining whether target repetition reduces search efficiency during serial search. As the study of inter-trial priming requires the target and distractors to exchange roles unpredictably, it has mostly been confined to singleton searches, which typically yield efficient search. We therefore resorted to two singleton searches known to yield relatively inefficient performance,

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

PENGARUH KEPUASAN PELANGGAN, BRAND IMAGE, DAN KEPERCAYAAN PELANGGAN TERHADAP LOYALITAS PELANGGAN PADA MEMBERCARD

Dwi Apriliani, S. NikmahBaqiyyatus, Rizka Febila et al. · 2020 · Entrepreneurship Bisnis Manajemen Akuntansi (E-BISMA)

This research was conducted to determine the effect of satisfaction, brand image and trust on customer loyalty at member cards. This research method uses questionnaire data collection techniques with the respondent data of 100 people. The…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Are There Multiple Motivators for Helping Behavior in Rats?

Phietica R. R. Silva, Phietica R. R. Silva, Regina H. Silva et al. · 2020 · Frontiers in Psychology

Empathy is the ability to (a) be affected by and share the emotional state of another; (b) assess the reasons for the other’s state; and (c) identify with the other, adopting their perspective. This phenomenon has been shown to exist in several species and is proposed as a motivator for prosocial behavior. The experimental study of this feature in laboratory rodents is a more viable alternative in comparison to wild animals. A recent report showed that rats opened a door to free their cage mate from a restraint box. Although this behavior has been suggested to be motivated by empathy, this fac

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Observed effects of distributional learning may not relate to the number of peaks. A test of dispersion as a confounding factor.

Karin eWanrooij, Paul eBoersma, Titia eBenders et al. · 2015 · Frontiers in Psychology

Distributional learning of speech sounds is learning from simply being exposed to frequency distributions of speech sounds in one’s surroundings. In laboratory settings, the mechanism has been reported to be discernible already after a few minutes of exposure, in both infants and adults. These effects of distributional training have traditionally been attributed to the difference in the number of peaks between the experimental distribution (two peaks) and the control distribution (one or zero peaks). However, none of the earlier studies fully excluded a possibly confounding effect of the dispe

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

The Impact of Cues on Joint Attention in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Study in Virtual Games

Lili Liu, Shuang Li, Lin Tian et al. · 2024 · Behavioral Sciences

Joint attention (JA), a core deficit in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is crucial for social interaction, emotional understanding, and cognitive development. This study aims to compare and analyze the eye-tracking data of ASD and typically developing children (TDC) during virtual games, exploring how different cue types affect JA performance in ASD children. A total of 31 TDC and 40 ASD children participated in the study. Using eye-tracking devices, we recorded the children’s eye movements as they played virtual games, selecting the correct target based on cues provided by virtu

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Examining the effect of impossible problem solving on state anger: Comparing in-person and MTurk participants

Thomas DiBlasi, Courtney Pisano, Kaleigh Keenan et al. · 2024 · International Journal of Personality Psychology

This research comprises of two studies examining the effect of impossible problem solving on state anger. For the first study, using 155 participants on Amazon’s MTurk, a significant difference was observed on state anger from baseline to post-intervention (p = .04). Due to the well documented concerns about using MTurk participants, a second study involving 111 participants from a small liberal arts college was conducted. Using the same design, no significant effect of time on state anger was observed (p > .05). Post-hoc analyses indicated a significant difference between MTurk and in-person

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Nogo stimuli do not receive more attentional suppression or response inhibition than neutral stimuli: evidence from the N2pc, PD and N2 components in a spatial cueing paradigm

Caroline eBarras, Dirk eKerzel · 2016 · Frontiers in Psychology

It has been claimed that stimuli sharing the color of the nogo-target are suppressed because of the strong incentive to not process the nogo-target, but we failed to replicate this finding. Participants searched for a color singleton in the target display and indicated its shape when it was in the go color. If the color singleton in the target display was in the nogo color, they had to withhold the response. The target display was preceded by a cue display that also contained a color singleton (the cue). The cue was either in the color of the go or nogo target, or it was in an unrelated, neutr

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Exploring the role of Honesty-Humility in replicating "The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality"

Singh, Anjali, Durand, Guillaume · 2022 · Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology

This study is a replication of Andreassen and colleagues (2013) [The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2(2), 90-99]. We partially replicated the findings of the original study. Our results support the role of personality, particularly conscientiousness, in predicting behavioral addictions, such as video game, Internet, and mobile phone addiction. However, we failed to replicate the same pattern of personality traits for each behavioral addiction.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Exploration of Attentional and Executive Abilities in French-Speaking Children Immersed in Dutch Since 1, 2, 3, and 6 Years

Sophie Gillet, Cristina Anca Barbu, Martine Poncelet · 2020 · Frontiers in Psychology

Advantages in diverse aspects of cognitive functioning have been reported in early bilinguals (Bialystok, 2011) as well as in children frequenting an early bilingual immersion school program (Nicolay and Poncelet, 2015). However, during the last decade, some studies failed to replicate these advantages. Currently, the presence of cognitive benefits in children frequenting an immersion program remains debated. The lack of consistency between the studies could come from the fact that time spent by children within the immersion program is variable from one study to the other and that studies used

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Caffeine enhances memory performance in young adults during their non-optimal time of day

Stephanie M Sherman, Timothy P Buckley, Elsa Baena et al. · 2016 · Frontiers in Psychology

Many college students struggle to perform well on exams in the early morning. Although students drink caffeinated beverages to feel more awake, it is unclear whether these actually improve performance. After consuming coffee (caffeinated or decaffeinated), college-age adults completed implicit and explicit memory tasks in the early morning and late afternoon (Experiment 1). During the morning, participants ingesting caffeine demonstrated a striking improvement in explicit memory, but not implicit memory. Caffeine did not alter memory performance in the afternoon. In Experiment 2, participants

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Study of Emotional Intelligence as Stress Controller for City Guards

Monalisa Muniz, Ricardo Primi, Fabiano Koich Miguel · 2007 · Psicologia

The Emotional intelligence supposedly is a mediator variable in the stress control although there is no sufficient empirical evidence supporting this relationship. The purpose of the present research was to study the correlation between emotional intelligence and stress. The participants were 24 city guards who answered the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Tests V2.0 (MSCEIT) and the Lipp’s Inventory of Stress Symptoms for Adults (ISSL). The results showed no significant correlation between stress and the general score of emotional intelligence. However, analyzing the subtasks score

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

When Does the Story Matter? No Evidence for the Foregrounding Hypothesis in Math Story Problems

Sabrina M. Di Lonardo Burr, Jill Turner, Jesse Nietmann et al. · 2021 · Journal of Numerical Cognition

Math story problems are difficult for many solvers because comprehension of mathematical and linguistic content must occur simultaneously. Across two studies, we attempted to conceptually replicate and extend findings reported by Mattarella-Micke and Beilock (2010, https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.1.106) and Jarosz and Jaeger (2019, https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3471). Mattarella-Micke and Beilock found that multiplication word problems in which an irrelevant number was associated with the protagonist of the problem (i.e., foregrounded in the text) were solved less accurately than problems in othe

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Snap & Write: Examining the Effect of Taking Photos and Notes on Memory for Lecture Content

Maribeth M. Trego, Julia S. Soares, Annie S. Ditta · 2025 · Behavioral Sciences

Three studies investigated the effects of photo and note taking on memory for lecture content in in-person and online environments. Participants watched slideshow lecture videos and were instructed to only watch, take photos, take notes, or simultaneously take both photos and notes of the information on the slides. Memory for on-slide and only said information was tested using fill-in-the-blank questions. Experiment 1, conducted in-person, found a significant photo-taking impairment and an interaction for on-slide information such that there was a larger impairment when participants took both

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

The Relationship Between Parenting Styles and Children’s Prosocial Behavior: The Mediating Role of Children’s Emotional Intelligence

Siqi Zhang, Ping Wang, Weichen Wang et al. · 2026 · Behavioral Sciences

Prosocial behavior is an important manifestation of socialization in young children. As the primary setting for socialization of young children, the family bears the significant responsibility of fostering prosocial behavior in young children. Drawing on family systems theory and Goleman’s emotional intelligence theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between parenting styles and children’s prosocial behavior and the mediating role of children’s emotional intelligence in it. In this study, an online questionnaire was distributed to 869 young children’s parents usi

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Early Maladaptive Schemas' Associations with Big-Five Personality Traits in a Non-Clinical Adult Sample

Aiste DIRZYTE, Aidas PERMINAS, Aiste SKARNULYTE et al. · 2024 · European Journal of Mental Health

Introduction: While personality traits and early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) can affect an individual’s behavior and well-being, the links between these constructs are under-researched, especially in non-clinical samples. Aims: Two studies were conducted to address these links, intending to explore their specifics, as previous research evidenced various associations’ models. Methods: In Study 1, the sample consisted of 120 respondents (65.0% females) living in the UK and the USA. In Study 2, the sample consisted of 244 respondents (68.0% females) living in Lithuania. In both studies, most of th

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

NUMANOMO POKYČIO APTIKIMAS: AR GALIME APSIEITI BE SĄMONĖS ĮSITERPIMO?

A. Norvilas, Miller J. C. · 2010 · Psichologija

D. Fernandez-Duque ir I. M. Thornton (2000) tariamai atrado, kad asmuo gali užfiksuoti pakitimą ir be sąmonės įsiterpimo. Tačiau šį atradimą gerokai menkina vienas pačių autorių pripažintas metodologinis trūkumas – kontrolinių bandymų nebuvimas. Siekdami tiksliau nustatyti, ar norint pastebėti pakitimą reikia sąmonės tarpininkavimo, ar jo užfiksavimas gali vykti ir be sąmonės įsiterpimo, dar kartą tyrėme, kaip matomame objekte aptinkamas pasikeitimas, tačiau šį kartą tyrėmė dvejopai: vienu atveju be kontrolinių bandymų, kaip ir D. Fernandez-Duque ir I. M. Thorntonas, o kitu atveju atlikome ir

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Workspace Disorder Does Not Influence Creativity and Executive Functions

Alberto Manzi, Yana Durmysheva, Shannon K. Pinegar et al. · 2019 · Frontiers in Psychology

Recent research by Vohs et al. (2013) garnered media attention after reporting that disordered environments increase creativity. The present research was designed to conceptually replicate and extend this finding by exploring the effect of workspace disorder on creativity. Participants were randomly assigned to work at a neatly organized (Order condition) or a messy desk (Disorder condition), where they completed several paper-and-pencil and computerized tasks, including two validated creativity measures (Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults; ATTA; Goff and Torrance, 2002; Alternative Uses Tas

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Early Maladaptive Schemas’ Associations with Big-Five Personality Traits in Two Non-Clinical Adult Samples from Different Cultural Backgrounds

Aiste Dirzyte, Aidas Perminas, Aiste Skarnulyte et al. · 2024 · European Journal of Mental Health

Introduction: While personality traits and early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) can affect an individual’s behavior and well-being, the links between these constructs are under-researched, especially in non-clinical samples. Aims: Two studies were conducted to address these links, intending to explore their specifics, as previous research evidenced various associations’ models. Methods: In Study 1, the sample consisted of 120 respondents (65.0% females) living in the UK and the USA. In Study 2, the sample consisted of 244 respondents (68.0% females) living in Lithuania. In both studies, most of th

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