Explanipedia

Experimentology Open

Michael C. Frank, Mika Braginsky, Julie Cachia, Nicholas A. Coles, Tom E Hardwicke , et al. · 2025

An engaging research methods text integrating a classic approach to conducting experiments in psychology with open science practices and values. How does a researcher run a high-quality psychology experiment? What time-tested methods shoul…

Big team science reveals promises and limitations of machine learning efforts to model physiological markers of affective experience Open

Nicholas A. Coles, Bartosz Perz, Maciej Behnke, Johannes C. Eichstaedt, Soo-Hyung Kim , et al. · 2025

Researchers are increasingly using machine learning to study physiological markers of emotion. We evaluated the promises and limitations of this approach via a big team science competition. Twelve teams competed to predict self-reported af…

The efficacy of seven gratitude interventions for promoting subjective well-being Open

Anna Dang, Nicholas A. Coles, Shigehiro Oishi, Michael E. McCullough · 2025

A Meta-Analysis of the Impact and Heterogeneity of Explicit Demand Characteristics Open

Nicholas A. Coles, M. B. Wyatt, Michael C. Frank · 2025

Demand characteristics are a fundamental methodological concern in experimental psychology. Yet, little is known about the direction, magnitude, and consistency of their effects. We conducted a three-level meta-analysis of 253 effect sizes…

A worldwide test of the predictive validity of ideal partner preference matching. Open

Paul W. Eastwick, Jehan Sparks, Eli J. Finkel, Eva M. Meza, Matúš Adamkovič , et al. · 2024

Ideal partner preferences (i.e., ratings of the desirability of attributes like attractiveness or intelligence) are the source of numerous foundational findings in the interdisciplinary literature on human mating. Recently, research on the…

Structural Validity Evidence for the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale Across 15 Languages Open

Briana Oshiro, William H.B. McAuliffe, Raymond Luong, Anabela Caetano Santos, Andrej Findor , et al. · 2024

Background: The Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) recently completed a large-scale moral psychology study using translated versions of the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale (OUS). However, the translated versions have no validity evidence.…

Increasing the transparency of systematic reviews: presenting a generalized registration form Open

Olmo R. van den Akker, Gjalt-Jorn Peters, Caitlin Bakker, Rickard Carlsson, Nicholas A. Coles , et al. · 2023

How to build up big team science: a practical guide for large-scale collaborations Open

Heidi A. Baumgartner, Nicolás Alessandroni, Krista Byers‐Heinlein, Michael C. Frank, J. Kiley Hamlin , et al. · 2023

The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of big team science (BTS), endeavours where a comparatively large number of researchers pool their intellectual and/or material resources in pursuit of a common goal. Despite this burgeoning in…

The Psychological Science Accelerator’s COVID-19 rapid-response dataset Open

Erin Michelle Buchanan, Savannah C Lewis, Bastien Paris, Patrick S. Forscher, Jeffrey M. Pavlacic , et al. · 2023

A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the Many Smiles Collaboration Open

Nicholas A. Coles, David S. March, Fernando Marmolejo‐Ramos, Jeff T. Larsen, Nwadiogo Chisom Arinze , et al. · 2022

The Benefits, Barriers, and Risks of Big-Team Science Open

Patrick S. Forscher, Eric‐Jan Wagenmakers, Nicholas A. Coles, Miguel Alejandro A. Silan, Natalia Bezerra Dutra , et al. · 2022

Progress in psychology has been frustrated by challenges concerning replicability, generalizability, strategy selection, inferential reproducibility, and computational reproducibility. Although often discussed separately, these five challe…

Why lectures are like blind dates Open

Nicholas A. Coles · 2022

Fact or artifact? Demand characteristics and participants’ beliefs can moderate, but do not fully account for, the effects of facial feedback on emotional experience. Open

Nicholas A. Coles, Lowell Gaertner, Brooke Frohlich, Jeff T. Larsen, Dana Basnight-Brown · 2022

The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that an individual's facial expressions can influence their emotional experience (e.g., that smiling can make one feel happier). However, a reoccurring concern is that supposed facial feedback effect…

Semantic Priming Across Many Languages (SPAML) Open

Erin Michelle Buchanan, Savannah L. Lewis, Kelly Cuccolo, Aishwarya Iyer, Kim Peters , et al. · 2021

Semantic priming has been studied for nearly 50 years across various experimental manipulations and theoretical frameworks. These studies provide insight into the cognitive underpinnings of semantic representations in both healthy and clin…

Analysis of Open Data and Computational Reproducibility in Registered Reports in Psychology Open

Pepijn Obels, Daniël Lakens, Nicholas A. Coles, Jaroslav Gottfried, Seth A. Green · 2020

Ongoing technological developments have made it easier than ever before for scientists to share their data, materials, and analysis code. Sharing data and analysis code makes it easier for other researchers to reuse or check published rese…

A global test of message framing on behavioural intentions, policy support, information seeking, and experienced anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic Open

Charles Dorison, Jennifer S. Lerner, Blake Heller, Alexander J. Rothman, Ichiro Kawachi , et al. · 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a critical need to identify best practices for communicating health information to the global public. It also provides an opportunity to test theories about risk communication. As part of a larger Psychologic…

Does Blocking Facial Feedback Via Botulinum Toxin Injections Decrease Depression? A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis Open

Nicholas A. Coles, Jeff T. Larsen, Joyce Kuribayashi, Ashley Kuelz · 2019

Researchers have proposed that blocking facial feedback via glabellar-region botulinum toxin injections (GBTX) can reduce depression. Random-effects meta-analyses of studies that administered GBTX to individuals with depression indicate th…

The Psychological Science Accelerator: Advancing Psychology Through a Distributed Collaborative Network Open

Hannah Moshontz, Lorne Campbell, Charles R. Ebersole, Hans IJzerman, Heather L. Urry , et al. · 2018

Concerns about the veracity of psychological research have been growing. Many findings in psychological science are based on studies with insufficient statistical power and nonrepresentative samples, or may otherwise be limited to specific…

The Psychological Science Accelerator: Advancing Psychology through a Distributed Collaborative Network Open

Hannah Moshontz, Lorne Campbell, Charles R. Ebersole, Hans IJzerman, Heather L. Urry , et al. · 2018

Concerns have been growing about the veracity of psychological research. Many findings in psychological science are based on studies with insufficient statistical power and nonrepresentative samples, or may otherwise be limited to specific…

PSA001: Social Faces Open

Benedict C. Jones, Lisa M. DeBruine, Jessica Kay Flake, Christopher R. Chartier, Savannah L. Lewis , et al. · 2017

Plans, materials, data, and other project-related materials for the Global Valence Dominance Model Test (PSA001)

A meta-analysis of the facial feedback hypothesis literature Open

Nicholas A. Coles, Jeff T. Larsen, Heather C. Lench · 2017

The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that our facial expressions influence our affective reactions. In light of Wagenmakers et al.’s (2016) failure to replicate Strack, Martin, and Stepper’s (1988) seminal demonstration of facial feedba…

Lewinian Conflict and Ambivalence Open

Nicholas A. Coles, Jeff T. Larsen · 2017

A Psychophysiological Investigation of the Proposed Paradoxical Effects of Valuing Happiness Open

Nicholas A. Coles · 2015

Several researchers in happiness studies have called for an increased sociopolitical interest in indicators of societal happiness. However, recent evidence for the proposed paradoxical effects of valuing happiness suggest that an increase …

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