Decoding the Gurus

*Patreon Preview* Decoding Academia #2: False Positive Psychology

12.30.2021 - By Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew BrownePlay

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The New Year is upon us and the gurologists thought they should contribute to the holiday cheer in the only way they can... releasing a rambling podcast about academic minutiae! This is not a new guru episode, instead it is a preview of our Patreon bonus series 'Decoding Academia' in which we discuss research that has influenced us & we think is relevant for understanding the gurus (or in this case approaching research critically). The paper in question is a classic social psychology paper that slightly pre-empted the Replication Crisis with very timely warnings about lax methodological standards. The paper is titled 'False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant' and is by Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn (2011). If you want to read the paper yourself it can be freely accessed here. It introduces the concept of 'Researcher Degrees of Freedom' and also statistically *proves* that listening to certain music can make you physically younger. How? Join us and find out! Finally... just a quick note to say Happy New Year from Chris & Matt! We will be back early next year with our Robert Wright episode and many gurus thereafter.

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