NDLI: Are Small Effects the Indispensable Foundation for a Cumulative Psychological Science? A Reply to Götz et al. (2022)

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Are Small Effects the Indispensable Foundation for a Cumulative Psychological Science? A Reply to Götz et al. (2022)

Content Provider	PsyArXiv
Author	Primbs, Maximilian Pennington, Charlotte Rebecca Lakens, Daniel Silan, Miguel Alejandro A. Lieck, Dwayne Sean Noah Forscher, Patrick S. Buchanan, Erin Michelle Westwood, Samuel James
Description	Götz et al. (2022) argue that small effects are “the indispensable foundation for a cumulative psychological science”. They support their argument by claiming that (i) psychology, like genetics, consists of complex phenomena explained by additive small effects, (ii) psychological research culture rewards large effects, which means small effects are being ignored, and (iii) small effects become meaningful at scale and over time. We rebut these claims with three objections: (i) the analogy between genetics and psychology is misleading, (ii) p-values are the main currency for publication in psychology, meaning that any biases in the literature are (currently) caused by a pressure to publish statistically significant results and not large effects, and (iii) claims regarding small effects as important and consequential must be supported by empirical evidence or, at least, a falsifiable line of reasoning. If accepted uncritically, we believe the arguments of Götz et al. (2022) could be used as a blanket justification for the importance of any and all ‘small’ effects, thereby undermining best practices in effect size interpretation. We end with guidance on evaluating effect sizes in relative, not absolute terms.
DOI	10.31234/osf.io/6s8bj
Language	English
Publisher Date	2021-10-25
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	CC-By Attribution 4.0 International
Subject Keyword	Meta-science;Social and Behavioral Sciences Cohen Effect Sizes Practical Significance Small Effects Statistical Inference
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Preprint
Subject	Social Sciences

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