2020
DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/svu29
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Fishing, Commitment, and Communication: A Proposal for Comprehensive Nonbinding Research Registration

Abstract: Social scientists generally enjoy substantial latitude in selecting measures and models for hypothesis testing. Coupled with publication and related biases, this latitude raises the concern that researchers may intentionally or unintentionally select models that yield positive findings, leading to an unreliable body of published research. To combat this "fishing" problem in medical studies, leading journals now require preregistration of designs that emphasize the prior identification of dependent and independ… Show more

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Cited by 39 publications
(58 citation statements)
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“…The covariate-by-covariate search for backlash is fraught with the risk of making false discoveries (Gelman and Loken 2016; Humphreys et al 2013; Kerr 1998). In order to guard against these pitfalls, we conduct a holistic analysis of treatment effect heterogeneity using a method that considers all measured moderators in a single model.…”
Section: Exploring Treatment Effect Heterogeneitymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The covariate-by-covariate search for backlash is fraught with the risk of making false discoveries (Gelman and Loken 2016; Humphreys et al 2013; Kerr 1998). In order to guard against these pitfalls, we conduct a holistic analysis of treatment effect heterogeneity using a method that considers all measured moderators in a single model.…”
Section: Exploring Treatment Effect Heterogeneitymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Our marginal effect of −0.152 on the number of assaults in the past year would indicate that the 118,000 households in treatment polygons suffered a total of almost 18,000 fewer physical assaults as a result of the program. While highly significant, these outcomes need to be corrected for multiple inference because they have been selected from the much broader potential set of social capital variables (Casey, Glennerster, and Miguel 2012;Humphreys, Sanchez de la Sierra, and van der Windt 2013). At the bottom of online Appendix Table A5, we therefore illustrate several different ways of penalizing ourselves for this fishing using Anderson's False Discovery Rate sharpened q-values (Anderson 2008).…”
Section: B Digging Further Into Impacts On Social Capital and Crimementioning
confidence: 99%
“…A conclusion from this might be that even observational work would need to be preregistered (see Burlig ; Humphreys et al. ). Gelman and Loken (: 460), in their more broad‐sweeping discussion, mention preregistration as one way out of the conundrum, highlight, however, also a more profound problem, namely “the garden of forking paths.” Each research from its initiation all the way to its publication is based on choices at numerous forking paths.…”
Section: P and Its Interpretationmentioning
confidence: 99%