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Ian Hussey

@ianhussey.mmmdata.io

3.1K followers 820 following 670 posts

Meta-scientist and psychologist. Senior lecturer @unibe.ch‬. Chief recommender @error.reviews. "Jumped up punk who hasn't earned his stripes." All views a product of my learning history.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · Jul 22

Lego Science is research driven by modular convenience.

When researchers combine methods or concepts, more out of convenience than any deep curiosity in the resulting research question, to create publishable units.

"What role does {my favourite construct} play in {task}?"

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 5h

And boys do wear skirts, especially in Scotland (kilts), where 70% of the sample is from. They statements are normative, not inviolable truths.

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 6h

"Cats have legs" vs "Fish have legs": Cohens d_rm = 11.95

Evaluations of "love" vs "murder": Cohens d_rm = 11.87

Evaluations of "honest" vs "dishonest": Cohens d_rm = 6.91

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 6h

Other things we included:

Using a pair of extreme attention checks as the comparison, "Please respond with 1" vs "please respond with 7" gives Cohen's d_rm = 51.92. This comes from one of 486 participants not following the instructions and responding with something other than 1 and 7.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 6h

Our study has three outcome measures: the original study's scale, a single item desirability measure, and a 3 item evaluation measure.

Across all measures, and using both Cohen's d_rm vs d_z, varies the estimate from d = 3.25 to d = 6.20. We'll plan to do a multiverse to model more choices.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 6h

Of the 21 predictions we received here and on our various Slacks, almost everyone underestimated it. Aaron Friedli, an RA in our lab, predicted it perfectly. @sabrinanorwood.bsky.social came a close second with 6. Only @eikofried.bsky.social overestimated it at 8.

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Reposted by Linda J. Skitka, Matt N Williams

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 6h

Results of the replication are in!

Chocolate is more desirable than poop:

Cohen's d_rm = 6.20, 95%CI [5.63, 6.78]

N = 486, two single item 1-7 Likert scales of desirability.

w/
@jamiecummins.bsky.social

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Make an effect size prediction!

@jamiecummins.bsky.social and I are replicating Balcetis & Dunning's (2010) "chocolate is more desirable than poop" (Cohen's d = 4.52)

Let us known in the replies what effect size you think we'll find. Details of the study in the thread below.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 16h

For this prediction, we’ll use cohens d_rm. Would you like to update your prediction?

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 19h

The image specifies it’s a bowl of Lindt chocolates. Care to update?

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Nice. Will definitely look into this.

Reposted by Richard S.J. Tol, Dorothy Bishop, Kamran Abbasi , and 8 more Richard S.J. Tol, Dorothy Bishop, Kamran Abbasi, Lesley A. Hall, Ingo Rohlfing, Ian Hussey, Douglas Guilfoyle, Andreas De Block, Paul Nightingale, Marcus Credé, Patrick Stokes

Nick Brown @steamtraen.eu · 1d

Next time an institution tells you how seriously it takes research misconduct, ask them if it's *this* seriously. www.bmj.com/content/297/...

In 1916 the BMJ published an article about the work done by James Shearer, an American physician working in the British Army as a sergeant (because he had no British qualification). He had described a
"delineator" which was better than x rays for portraying gunshot wounds. This caused a sensation and a lot of interest — but on investigation the work was found to have been invented. The BMJ published a retraction, but Shearer was tried by court martial and sentenced to death by firing squad.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

True. Replication cancelled, everyone go home.

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Bear in mind the original study was the pretest of stimuli for a main study, so might not be biased this way.

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

The probability that it’s exactly half actually quite low. If we consider the binomial distribution,

Reposted by Ian Hussey, Matt N Williams, Jill A. Jacobson , and 1 more Ian Hussey, Matt N Williams, Jill A. Jacobson, Matti Vuorre

PCI Psychology @psych.peercommunityin.org · 1d

PCI Psychology is open for submissions! Did you know that you can easily submit your recommended preprint to any of the 20+ PCI Psych friendly journals? See all friendly journals here: psych.peercommunityin.org/about/pci_fr...
#PsychSciSky #SciPub

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

It honestly had not crossed our minds, but now that you say it…

patrick star from spongebob squarepants with his hands folded

ALT: patrick star from spongebob squarepants with his hands folded

media.tenor.com

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

The outcomes I’m asking for a prediction for are two single items, 1-7 scale:

bsky.app/profile/ianh...

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Our questions are:
"How desirable is human poop in a toilet bowl?" vs "How desirable is a bowl of chocolates?", with pictures of both, from "Very undesirable" to "Very desirable"
We also have other qs, but this is the one I want predictions for.

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

We have bot checks, attention checks, and a self exclude item. We use prolific’s filter for age 18-100, fluent English, resident in UK or US.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

I suspect the reported number is erroneous in some way.

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Could you be a little more precise please

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Totally agree!

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

“To what degree is chocolate more desirable than poop?”

Reposted by Ian Hussey

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 1d

The quarto-preprint @quarto.org extension (github.com/mvuorre/quar...) for PDF outputs with #typst now includes proper appendices for reproducible #quartopub #rstats manuscripts, improved two-column layouts (and themes, incl. full-width content), better reference formatting & improved documentation.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

The broader goal of our study is to examine the impact of measurement and analytic choices, so we vary many things like this. It’s a pedagogical piece on how the estimation of even the simplest preferences is harder than it sounds.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

There are photographs of each above the questions yes. The original study was done in person and had props for both, ours is online.

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

The picture is the exact materials given to the participant, and they were also shown physical props of each (dummy poop in a plastic bag and a bowl of Lindt chocolates). I think the materials did not imply subtler distinctions like in vs out of bag, but also did not explicitly say vs the chocolate.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Link?

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

Yes here’s how they asked bsky.app/profile/ianh...

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

The original study used these questions, which did not actually ask about "desirability"!

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

I forgot to add: we use a 1-7 scale.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

The original authors could not tell us which specific version of Cohen's d was used, but it was likely a within-subjects version of it. Between subjects versions of it applied to the M/SD dont reproduce the reported value.

We'll use Cohen's d_rm: within-subjects, taking correlation into account.

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Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · 1d

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