302 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures in Social Sciences. 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.
Kitae Sohn, Illoong Kwon · 2016 · The Singapore Economic Review
Trust was found to promote entrepreneurship in the US. We investigated whether this was true in a developing country, Indonesia. We failed to replicate this; this failure was true whether trust was estimated at the individual or community…
View details →Chloe Wittenberg, Ziv Epstein, Gabrielle Péloquin-Skulski et al. · 2025 · PNAS Nexus
Abstract Recent advancements in generative AI have raised widespread concern about the use of this technology to spread audio and visual misinformation. In response, there has been a major push among policymakers and technology companies to label AI-generated media appearing online. It remains unclear, however, what types of labels are most effective for this purpose. Here, we evaluate two (potentially complementary) strategies for labeling AI-generated content online: (i) a process-based approach, aimed at clarifying how content was made and (ii) a harm-based approach, aimed at highlighting c
View details →Wesley Myers, Kristin M. Lloyd, Jillian J. Turanovic et al. · 2018 · Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
There is a growing “replication crisis” in the social and behavioral sciences, where original research across a wide array of substantive areas has failed to replicate when conducted by others. This problem highlights the importance of…
View details →Toby Prike, Phoebe Blackley, Briony Swire‐Thompson et al. · 2023 · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications
Corrections are a frequently used and effective tool for countering misinformation. However, concerns have been raised that corrections may introduce false claims to new audiences when the misinformation is novel. This is because boosting the familiarity of a claim can increase belief in that claim, and thus exposing new audiences to novel misinformation-even as part of a correction-may inadvertently increase misinformation belief. Such an outcome could be conceptualized as a familiarity backfire effect, whereby a familiarity boost increases false-claim endorsement above a control-condition or
View details →Sofia Ammassari, Duncan McDonnell, Annika Werner et al. · 2026 · European Journal of Political Research
Abstract Do young women and men join political parties for different reasons? To investigate, we theorize the following: first, women will be more attracted by social incentives and men by material ones, while purposive incentives will be…
View details →Anthony N. Reffi, Caitlin M. Pinciotti, Holly K. Orcutt · 2018 · Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Institutional betrayal reflects the failings of a trusted institution to prevent or respond appropriately to negative experiences. Following sexual assault, survivors who encounter institutional betrayal may experience greater distress and…
View details →Zouhaier Aloui, Mekki Hamdaoui, Samir Maktouf · 2024 · Transnational Corporation Review
This paper examines the moderating role of governance in the effect of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on poverty using simultaneous equations models for sub-Saharan African, Asian, Latin American and Eastern European countries over the…
View details →Damian J. Ruck, R. Alexander Bentley, Alberto Acerbi et al. · 2017 · Advances in Complex Systems
Here, we test Neutral models against the evolution of English word frequency and vocabulary at the corpus scale, as recorded in annual word frequencies from three centuries of English language books. Against these data, we test both static…
View details →Ashley I. Naimi · 2016 · Epidemiology
The less a science is advanced, the more its terminology rests on an uncritical assumption of mutual understanding. —Quine1 Complex systems science is a new field that continues to garner prominence. Arguments for a more widespread…
View details →Luísa Sório Flor, Cory N Spencer, Jack Cagney et al. · 2025 · The Lancet
BACKGROUND: Violence against women and against children are human rights violations with lasting harms to survivors and societies at large. Intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence against children (SVAC) are two major forms of such abuse. Despite their wide-reaching effects on individual and community health, these risk factors have not been adequately prioritised as key drivers of global health burden. Comprehensive x§and reliable estimates of the comparative health burden of IPV and SVAC are urgently needed to inform investments in prevention and support for survivors at both nat
View details →Evan A. Valdes, James H. Liu, Matt N Williams · 2022 · Asian Journal Of Social Psychology
The status‐legitimacy hypothesis proposes that those who are most disadvantaged by unequal social systems are even more likely than members of more advantaged groups to provide ideological support for the very social system that is responsible for their disadvantages. Li, Yang, Wu, and Kou (2020, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin ) sought to expand the generalizability of this hypothesis by testing it in China, addressing inconsistencies surrounding the empirical support for this hypothesis by postulating that the construct of status should be separated into an objective and subjectiv
View details →Jonathan E. Ramsay, Eddie M. W. Tong, Joyce S. Pang et al. · 2016 · PLoS ONE
Religious priming has been found to have both positive and negative consequences, and recent research suggests that the activation of God-related and community-related religious cognitions may cause outgroup prosociality and outgroup derogation respectively. The present research sought to examine whether reminders of God and religion have different effects on attitudes towards ingroup and outgroup members. Over two studies, little evidence was found for different effects of these two types of religious primes. In study 1, individuals primed with the words "religion", "God" and a neutral contro
View details →Melissa Chapple, Philip Davis, Josie Billington et al. · 2022 · Frontiers in Psychology
Dominant theoretical models of autism and resultant research enquiries have long centered upon an assumed autism-specific empathy deficit. Associated empirical research has largely relied upon cognitive tests that lack ecological validity and associate empathic skill with heuristic-based judgments from limited snapshots of social information. This artificial separation of thought and feeling fails to replicate the complexity of real-world empathy, and places socially tentative individuals at a relative disadvantage. The present study aimed to qualitatively explore how serious literary fiction,
View details →Selina Banda, Florence Phiri, Jack Kaale et al. · 2023
Bloom’s Taxonomy is crucial in any teaching and learning environment because it determines direction for a course of study. This study assessed application of Bloom’s Taxonomy in courses of study offered in colleges in Lusaka District. Objectives were: Assess the application of Bloom’s Taxonomy in setting learning outcomes for the courses; Assess reflection of Bloom’s Taxonomy in activities set for course participants; Ascertain significance attached to Bloom’s Taxonomy in courses of study designed for participants. The study employed a mixed methodology, in particular employing a descriptive
View details →Meghan Roche, Andrea Carr, In Heok Lee et al. · 2016 · Journal of Career Assessment
This study explored the measurement equivalence of the Career Indecision Profile (CIP) in a Chinese sample with both U.S. and South Korean samples. Past measurement invariance research on the CIP in four international samples (Icelandic…
View details →Katharina Schmid, Ralf Wölfer, Herman Swart et al. · 2017 · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
This article reexamines the so-called "wallpaper effect" of intergroup contact, which contends that for minority group members living in areas more densely populated by majority group members, intergroup contact fails to reduce prejudice. We tested this claim in five studies, using data from five countries, two types of contexts, a range of measures, and involving different minority versus majority groups. Using multilevel cross-level interaction models, we considered whether effects of contact on outgroup attitudes were moderated by relative outgroup size. Results failed to replicate the prev
View details →Branden B. Johnson, Marcus Mayorga · 2020 · Human and Ecological Risk Assessment An International Journal
Cross-sectional surveys, despite their value, are unable to probe dynamics of risk perceptions over time. An earlier longitudinal panel study of Americans’ views on Ebola risk inspired this partial replication on Americans’ views of Zika…
View details →Penny Holding, Amina Abubakar, Elizabeth Obiero et al. · 2011
The aim of this paper is to describe the adaptations made to the Infant-Toddler version of the Home Observation Measure of the Environment for use in a low income Kenyan population. A total of 425 (214 girls) children aged 6-35 months were…
View details →Jill E. P. Knapen, Nancy M. Blaker, Thomas V. Pollet · 2017 · PLoS ONE
Research shows that perception of physical size and status are positively associated. The current study was developed to replicate and extend earlier research on height perceptions of political leaders, indicating that supporters perceive their leaders as taller than non-supporters do, and winners are perceived as taller after the elections, while losers are perceived as shorter after the elections (winner/loser effects). Individuals use greater height and strength as indications of greater physical formidability. We hypothesized that in-group leaders' height and strength, but not weight, woul
View details →Junjie Dong, Zhidan Tan, Y Zhang et al. · 2025 · BMC Psychology
BACKGROUND: With the advancement of globalization and technology, remote work has gradually become a feasible and popular work model, particularly with the rapid adoption of working from home driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift not…
View details →Kate Ambler, Kelly Jones, Michael O’Sullivan · 2025 · Journal of Development Economics
We conduct a randomized controlled trial to test a novel intervention for increasing women’s empowerment in Uganda. The intervention includes a within-household transfer of a productive asset, which has a lower cost than an external…
View details →Gayle Jansen Brisbane, Patrick Ferrucci, Edson C. Tandoc · 2021 · Communication & Sport
Women are more visible than ever in sports media. Yet, extant research has shown that females have endured an array of issues exclusive to their gender. Consistent research updates on gender in sports media is necessary in order to…
View details →Marcel Garz, Märt Ots · 2025 · Journal of Communication
Abstract News organizations have been under financial pressure to streamline their activities for decades. Critics argue that this pressure undermines the quality of news, posing a severe threat to democracy. However, the effects of media consolidation on news quality are theoretically ambiguous and empirical evidence is scarce. To address this gap, we study the case of the Swedish newspaper industry between 2014 and 2022, a period where more than half of the country’s newspapers changed their owners. We collect over 2 million articles from 108 newspapers and apply state-of-the-art computation
View details →Suzanne M. Skevington, Kara Schick‐Makaroff, Christine Rowland et al. · 2024 · PLoS ONE
Gender inequalities in health-related quality of life (QoL) are generally few and small, even in large surveys. Many generic measures limit assessment to QoL overall and its physical and psychological dimensions, while overlooking internationally important environmental, social, and spiritual QoL domains. Unique cross-cultural legacy data was collected using four WHOQOL-100 surveys of adults living in 43 cultures world-wide (17,608 adults; ages 15-101). It was first used to examined gender profiles of its five QoL international domains, and their component facets. Few significant gender differ
View details →Laura Macchi, Francesco Poli, Laura Caravona et al. · 2019 · Europe’s Journal of Psychology
The previous research attempts to reduce the influence of the belief bias on deductive thinking have often been unsuccessful and, when they succeeded, they failed to replicate. In this paper, we propose a new way to see an old problem. Instead of considering the analytical abilities of the respondent, we focus on the communicative characteristics of the experimental task. By changing the pragmatics into play through a subtle manipulation of the instruction of the syllogism problem, we obtained a strong improvement in the accuracy of the performance in both untrained and trained in logic respon
View details →Jeremy Bowles, Kevin Croke, Horacio Larreguy et al. · 2025 · American Political Science Review
Exposure to misinformation can affect citizens’ beliefs, political preferences, and compliance with government policies. However, little is known about how to durably reduce susceptibility to misinformation, particularly in the Global South. We evaluate an intervention in South Africa that encouraged individuals to consume biweekly fact-checks—as text messages or podcasts—via WhatsApp for six months. Sustained exposure to these fact-checks induced substantial internalization of fact-checked content, while increasing participants’ ability to discern new political and health misinformation upon
View details →Xueqin Qian, Renáta Tichá, Roger J. Stancliffe · 2017 · Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities
Abstract Although numerous studies in the U.K. and Australia have shown that Active Support (AS) is an effective intervention in increasing staff assistance and engagement for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD)…
View details →Eelco Harteveld, Lars Erik Berntzen, Andrej Kokkonen et al. · 2026 · European Journal of Political Research
Abstract Affective polarization (or antipathy between supporters of opposing political camps) is considered a threat to societal cohesion and democratic stability worldwide. However, causal evidence of its impact remains scarce, especially outside the United States. Our study examines the individual-level consequences of affective polarization by manipulating it in a survey experiment in nine countries (Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States; N ≈ 18,000) and subsequently assessing the downstream consequences for social avoidance and dis
View details →Elizabeth Taylor, Kelsey C. Hewitt, Robert A. Reeves et al. · 2013 · Procedia Technology
Previously, in the field to solve complex problems, we had found that majority rule (MR) decision-making out-performed consensus rule (CR) by making decisions that were quicker, more practical, and of better quality. This is an important…
View details →Syed Imran Ali, Morgan C. MacDonald, J. Jincy et al. · 2011 · Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development
This study investigated the efficacy of a POU water treatment system featuring sari-cloth filtration and/or Moringa oleifera coagulation as pre-treatments for solar disinfection (SODIS). Surface water from a peri-urban slum in Chennai,…
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