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Replicability of findings is at the heart of any empirical science. The aim of this article is to move the current replicability debate in psychology towards concrete recommendations for improvement. We focus on research practices but also offer guidelines for reviewers, editors, journal management, teachers, granting institutions, and university promotion committees, highlighting some of the emerging and existing practical solutions that can facilitate implementation of these recommendations. The challenges for improving replicability in psychological science are systemic. Improvement can occur only if changes are made at many levels of practice, evaluation, and reward.
Whenever eye movements are measured, a central part of the analysis has to do with where subjects fixate and why they fixated where they fixated. To a first approximation, a set of fixations can be viewed as a set of points in space; this implies that fixations are spatial data and that the analysis of fixation locations can be beneficially thought of as a spatial statistics problem. We argue that thinking of fixation locations as arising from point processes is a very fruitful framework for eye-movement data, helping turn qualitative questions into quantitative ones. We provide a tutorial introduction to some of the main ideas of the field of spatial statistics, focusing especially on spatial Poisson processes. We show how point processes help relate image properties to fixation locations. In particular we show how point processes naturally express the idea that image features' predictability for fixations may vary from one image to another. We review other methods of analysis used in the literature, show how they relate to point process theory, and argue that thinking in terms of point processes substantially extends the range of analyses that can be performed and clarify their interpretation.
Measures of gender identity have almost exclusively relied on positive aspects of masculinity and femininity, although conceptually the self-concept is not limited to positive attributes. A theoretical argument is made for considering negative attributes of gender identity, followed by five studies developing the Positive-Negative Sex-Role Inventory (PN-SRI) as a new measure of gender identity. Study 1 demonstrated that many of the attributes of a German version of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory are no longer considered to differ in desirability for men and women. For the PN-SRI, Study 2 elicited attributes characterizing men and women in today's society, for which ratings of typicality and desirability as well as self-ratings by men and women were obtained in Study 3. Study 4 examined the reliability and factorial structure of the four subscales of positive and negative masculinity and femininity and demonstrated the construct and discriminant validity of the PN-SRI by showing that the negative masculinity and femininity scales were unique predictors of select validation constructs. Study 5 showed that the new instrument explained variance in the validation constructs beyond earlier measures of gender identity. Key message: Even in the construction of negative aspects of gender identity, individuals prefer gender-congruent attributes. Negative masculinity and femininity make a unique contribution to understanding gender-related differences in psychological outcome variables.
Background: Clock genes govern circadian rhythms and shape the effect of alcohol use on the physiological system. Exposure to severe negative life events is related to both heavy drinking and disturbed circadian rhythmicity. The aim of this study was 1) to extend previous findings suggesting an association of a haplotype tagging single nucleotide polymorphism of PER2 gene with drinking patterns, and 2) to examine a possible role for an interaction of this gene with life stress in hazardous drinking.
Methods: Data were collected as part of an epidemiological cohort study on the outcome of early risk factors followed since birth. At age 19 years, 268 young adults (126 males, 142 females) were genotyped for PER2 rs56013859 and were administered a 45-day alcohol timeline follow-back interview and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). Life stress was assessed as the number of severe negative life events during the past four years reported in a questionnaire and validated by interview.
Results: Individuals with the minor G allele of rs56013859 were found to be less engaged in alcohol use, drinking at only 72% of the days compared to homozygotes for the major A allele. Moreover, among regular drinkers, a gene x environment interaction emerged (p = .020). While no effects of genotype appeared under conditions of low stress, carriers of the G allele exhibited less hazardous drinking than those homozygous for the A allele when exposed to high stress.
Conclusions: These findings may suggest a role of the circadian rhythm gene PER2 in both the drinking patterns of young adults and in moderating the impact of severe life stress on hazardous drinking in experienced alcohol users. However, in light of the likely burden of multiple tests, the nature of the measures used and the nominal evidence of interaction, replication is needed before drawing firm conclusions.
BackgroundEarly alcohol use is one of the strongest predictors of later alcohol use disorders, with early use usually taking place during puberty. Many researchers have suggested drinking during puberty as a potential biological basis of the age at first drink (AFD) effect. However, the influence of the pubertal phase at alcohol use initiation on subsequent drinking in later life has not been examined so far.
MethodsPubertal stage at first drink (PSFD) was determined in N=283 young adults (131 males, 152 females) from an epidemiological cohort study. At ages 19, 22, and 23years, drinking behavior (number of drinking days, amount of alcohol consumed, hazardous drinking) was assessed using interview and questionnaire methods. Additionally, an animal study examined the effects of pubertal or adult ethanol (EtOH) exposure on voluntary EtOH consumption in later life in 20 male Wistar rats.
ResultsPSFD predicted drinking behavior in humans in early adulthood, indicating that individuals who had their first drink during puberty displayed elevated drinking levels compared to those with postpubertal drinking onset. These findings were corroborated by the animal study, in which rats that received free access to alcohol during the pubertal period were found to consume more alcohol as adults, compared to the control animals that first came into contact with alcohol during adulthood.
ConclusionsThe results point to a significant role of stage of pubertal development at first contact with alcohol for the development of later drinking habits. Possible biological mechanisms and implications for prevention are discussed.
There is converging evidence suggesting a particular susceptibility to the addictive properties of nicotine among adolescents. The aim of the current study was to prospectively ascertain the relationship between age at first cigarette and initial smoking experiences, and to examine the combined effects of these characteristics of adolescent smoking behavior on adult smoking. It was hypothesized that the association between earlier age at first cigarette and later development of nicotine dependence may, at least in part, be attributable to differences in experiencing pleasurable early smoking sensations. Data were drawn from the participants of the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk, an ongoing epidemiological cohort study from birth to adulthood. Structured interviews at age 15, 19 and 22 years were conducted to assess the age at first cigarette, early smoking experiences and current smoking behavior in 213 young adults. In addition, the participants completed the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence. Adolescents who smoked their first cigarette at an earlier age reported more pleasurable sensations from the cigarette, and they were more likely to be regular smokers at age 22. The age at first cigarette also predicted the number of cigarettes smoked and dependence at age 22. Thus, both the age of first cigarette and the pleasure experienced from the cigarette independently predicted aspects of smoking at age 22.
Recent studies have emphasized an important role for neurotrophins, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), in regulating the plasticity of neural circuits involved in the pathophysiology of stress-related diseases. The aim of the present study was to examine the interplay of the BDNF Val(66)Met and the serotonin transporter promoter (5-HTTLPR) polymorphisms in moderating the impact of early-life adversity on BDNF plasma concentration and depressive symptoms. Participants were taken from an epidemiological cohort study following the long-term outcome of early risk factors from birth into young adulthood. In 259 individuals (119 males, 140 females), genotyped for the BDNF Val(66)Met and the 5-HTTLPR polymorphisms, plasma BDNF was assessed at the age of 19 years. In addition, participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Early adversity was determined according to a family adversity index assessed at 3 months of age. Results indicated that individuals homozygous for both the BDNF Val and the 5-HTTLPR L allele showed significantly reduced BDNF levels following exposure to high adversity. In contrast, BDNF levels appeared to be unaffected by early psychosocial adversity in carriers of the BDNF Met or the 5-HTTLPR S allele. While the former group appeared to be most susceptible to depressive symptoms, the impact of early adversity was less pronounced in the latter group. This is the first preliminary evidence indicating that early-life adverse experiences may have lasting sequelae for plasma BDNF levels in humans, highlighting that the susceptibility to this effect is moderated by BDNF Val(66)Met and 5-HTTLPR genotype.
When playing violent video games, aggressive actions are performed against the background of an originally neutral environment, and associations are formed between cues related to violence and contextual features. This experiment examined the hypothesis that neutral contextual features of a virtual environment become associated with aggressive meaning and acquire the function of primes for aggressive cognitions. Seventy-six participants were assigned to one of two violent video game conditions that varied in context (ship vs. city environment) or a control condition. Afterwards, they completed a Lexical Decision Task to measure the accessibility of aggressive cognitions in which they were primed either with ship-related or city-related words. As predicted, participants who had played the violent game in the ship environment had shorter reaction times for aggressive words following the ship primes than the city primes, whereas participants in the city condition responded faster to the aggressive words following the city primes compared to the ship primes. No parallel effect was observed for the non-aggressive targets. The findings indicate that the associations between violent and neutral cognitions learned during violent game play facilitate the accessibility of aggressive cognitions.
Despite the increased attention devoted to sexual aggression among college students in the international research literature, Brazil has no systematic studies on the prevalence of sexual aggression in college populations. The present research measured the prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization since age 14 among 742 first-year college students in Brazil (411 women). A Portuguese version of the Short Form of the Sexual Experiences Survey (Koss et al., 2007) was administered to collect information from men and women as both victims and perpetrators of sexual aggression. The overall prevalence rate of victimization was 27% among men and 29% among women. Except for sexual coercion and attempted sexual coercion, there were no significant gender differences in victimization rates concerning nonconsensual sexual acts and aggressive strategies. In contrast, perpetration rates were significantly higher among men (33.7%) than among women (3%). The findings challenge societal beliefs that men are unlikely to be sexually coerced. Explanations are proposed for the disparity between male victimization and female perpetration rates based on traditional gender roles in Brazil.
It is well established that fixation durations during reading vary with processing difficulty, but there are different views on how oculomotor control, visual perception, shifts of attention, and lexical (and higher cognitive) processing are coordinated. Evidence for a one-to-one translation of input delay into saccadic latency would provide a much needed constraint for current theoretical proposals. Here, we tested predictions of such a direct-control perspective using the stimulus-onset delay (SOD) paradigm. Words in sentences were initially masked and, on fixation, were individually unmasked with a delay (0-, 33-, 66-, 99-ms SODs). In Experiment 1, SODs were constant for all words in a sentence; in Experiment 2, SODs were manipulated on target words, while nontargets were unmasked without delay. In accordance with predictions of direct control, nonzero SODs entailed equivalent increases in fixation durations in both experiments. Yet, a population of short fixations pointed to rapid saccades as a consequence of low-level information at nonoptimal viewing positions rather than of lexical processing. Implications of these results for theoretical accounts of oculomotor control are discussed.