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This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of social science research, research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions. Researchers’ expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 95% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after qualitative coding of all identifiable decisions in each team’s workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that remains hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers’ results and conclusions varied is a previously underappreciated explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for greater epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings.

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This article explains the variation in the life satisfaction of international migrants across Europe using the idea of the cultural embeddedness of subjective well-being, expressed in various approaches such as social comparison theory, the Easterlin paradox and Cummins' (2003) assumption of normativeness. The authors claim that immigrants' levels of life satisfaction will be the subject of a dual contextuality. First, the cultural heritage of the country of origin has a pervasive influence long after migration. Second, a permanent upward adjustment is likely to occur toward the average level of life satisfaction in the country of current residence. Additional interaction effects, namely the impact of cultural distance and exposure to the two relevant cultures, are also considered. For testing, the authors employ multilevel cross-classified models on data from the 2008 wave of the European Values Study. The findings indicate that both origin and host societies provide relevant contextual frameworks and mould immigrants' life satisfaction.Life satisfaction is usually explained through personal characteristics, through wealth and access to resources, through relative standards and reference frameworks, and