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Statistical Significance In Published Scientific Works The Research Paper

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Statistical Significance in Published Scientific Works The study I chose to examine is from the field of psychology: Todd, Hanko, Galinsky, and Mussweiler (2011), "When Focusing on Differences Leads to Similar Perspectives. This study was recently published in Psychological Science, a high-impact journal in the field. The research has to do with perspective-taking in conversation; the authors hypothesize that people are better at taking another person's perspective if they are in a "difference mindset" -- i.e. are more aware of interpersonal differences than usual. The authors propose to induce this "difference mindset" by a variety of means, across five experiments. Below, I will discuss the use of statistics in their study and how well they conveyed the size and significance of the results.

Experimental Design

All five experiments used a similar design: participants were randomly assigned to a similarity-mindset, difference-mindset, or control condition. Experiment 1 tested perceptual perspective differences, Experiment 2 tested the impact of the difference mindset on the use of privileged knowledge in interpreting communication, Experiment 3 tested whether the difference mindset would improve reasoning about false beliefs, Experiment 4 tested the impact of the difference mindset on reasoning about racial prejudice-based false beliefs, and Experiment 5 tested whether the difference mindset would improve or hinder interpersonal coordination in a collaborative task.

Statistical...

They also reported values for partial Eta squared, a measure of effect size that is analogous to r2 (correlation). For some experiments, they also report d, or probabilistic hit rate, for items in which subjects' accuracy was measured. Values for t, F, and d from Experiments 1-5 can be seen in the table below.
Similarity

Difference

Control

X1: t (78), from Diff.

2.60 (p = 0.01)

Comparison group

2.10 (p = 0.04)

X1: F (2, 78)

Main effect: 3.80 (p = 0.03)

X1: d

0.59

Comparison group

0.48

X2: t (97)

3.30 (p = 0.001)

Comparison group

2.15 (p = 0.3)

X2: F (2, 97)

Main effect: 5.55 (p < 0.01)

X2: d

0.67

Comparison group

0.44

X3: t (39)

3.05 (p < 0.01)

Comparison group

2.27 (p = 0.03)

X3: F (1, 39)

Interaction (Mind-set x Knowledge base): 7.28 (p = 0.01)

X3: d

0.98

Comparison group

0.74

X4: t (56)

2.59 (p = 0.01)

Comparison group

2.20 (p = 0.03)

X4: F (1,56)

Interaction (Protagonist group x…

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Study Conclusions

The authors claim that the five experiments presented show "clear and consistent support" for their hypothesis that the difference mindset improves conversational perspective-taking. Speaking as a statistician, I would be hard pressed to let the strength of this claim pass. The significance of their t- and F-tests varies in strength from p = 0.05 (approaching "marginally significant") to p = 0.001 (a solid result). This indicates that the five experiments in the study have different impacts on their subjects, and may in fact operate by different mechanisms. This suspicion is upheld by the consistently low effect size obtained in each experiment. Overall, I am somewhat surprised by the study's appearance in such a high-impact journal, although the rigor and size of the experiments, literature review, and theoretical support is considerable. In addition, the topic (whether being sensitized to differences affects human interaction) is a very interesting one. I hope to see more research on this topic in future studies that explore and explain the low effect sizes found in this set of experiments.

Todd, A., Hanko, K., Galinsky, A., & Mussweiler, T (2011). When Focusing on Differences Leads to Similar Perspectives. Psychological Science, 22(1): 134-141.
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