Failed Replications and Fraudulent Researchers – Psychological Research is a "Mess"

Last Wednesday, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman sent an email to a group of a dozen or so psychologists telling them that the credibility of their field was in danger. The recipients all worked on social priming – the study of how subtle unconscious cues can influence our behaviour. It’s an area that has attracted controversy of late, due to failed replications of classic results[!], the outing of fraudulent researchers, and a more general concern among psychologists about the validity of their field’s results.

Kahneman meant the email as helpful advice, but his wording couldn’t have been stronger: “Your field is now the poster child for doubts about the integrity of psychological research… I believe that you should collectively do something about this mess.” His solution: a “daisy chain” of replications, where laboratories collaborate to check the results of their neighbours, in an open, transparent, and pre-established way. …

And:

“It doesn’t follow that people who are doing priming are committing fraud; it’s more likely that people who are committing fraud are drawn to that field. It’s important not to invert the logic of that.”