Joon Kang 720495870

1)

After reading the two articles, I personally believe that scientific research is most

certainly not in crisis. Many people have become alarmed about the research done in
Psychology: how many experiments failed to replicate results and how many Psychology
research papers have been retracted. Indeed there has been an enormous fuss according to the
two articles, but the truth of the matter is that lack of replication is not a sign for distress. Rather,
it is the very nature of science itself. The article titled Psychology is not in crisis provides
numerous examples of experiments and findings from the past that refute the notion that failure
to replicate results ultimately mean that the experiment or finding itself is faulty. Consider the
idea of quantum motion. When it was discovered that these subatomic particles failed to obey
Newtons laws of motion, the scientific community was in a state of panic initially- until they
began to understand that Newtons laws are only obeyed in certain contexts that gave rise to the
study of Quantum Mechanics. People who are convinced that research in Psychology is out of
shape fail to realize that experiments fail to replicate when the context is changed. Furthermore,
they fail to notice that these failures are what spur on scientists to search deeper and ultimately
discover new phenomenon. Additionally, the second article explains to us that the attack on
failure of replication is more often than not a highly vague attack. Dr. Norbert Schwarz from
Stanford University claims that even the replication studies were not addressed for errors in
procedure or analysis. This leads to skepticism on how people determine whether or not research
experiments fail to replicate results and the validity of these evaluations.
2)

As previously mentioned, many experiments done in Psychology fail to replicate results

when the context of said experiment is changed. A very famous example of this is known as fear
learning- a phenomenon used to explain anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress.
Scientists would place a rat in a small box with a built-in electric grid on the floor. They play a

Joon Kang 720495870

tone for the rat to recognize and proceed to give the rat an electric shock. The shock causes the
rat to freeze, which in turn causes the rats heart rate and blood pressure to increase as well. The
scientists repeat this process many times, pairing the tone and the shock together. Eventually,
they play the tone without the shock and notice that the rat reacts the same way expecting the
shock. However, the scientists altered the context slightly by restraining the rat. Their results saw
that the rats heart rate actually dropped.
Another reason that experiments could fail to replicate results is that difference in
experimentation. Paola Bressan, a psychologist at the University of Padua, originally conducted
a study on mate preference. She found that women were more likely to rate the attractiveness of
single men when they were highly fertile. Her experiment had been retracted due to other people
not being able to replicate results. However, she noticed several differences in her
experimentation versus theirs- primarily that her sample of women was Indian women not
American psychology students. Bressans experience is only one of many experiments that failed
to replicate results but were judged on an unfair basis.
3)

I personally believe that replicability is an important part of scientific research. If no

standard for replicability existed, then all validity of findings would dissipate immediately. One
major advantage is to ensure accuracy of research. A significant challenge to this however is that
the methodology of challenging experiments can be argued against and that failure of replication
can lead to even greater scientific discoveries. Many experiments were retracted by replicated
experiments that had a different design and procedure than the original experiment, which
provides no benefit at all. Therefore, I believe that replicability must be upheld during scientific
research, but it must be upheld without altering the original experimental design and in a way
that provides possible doors for deeper scientific findings.

Joon Kang 720495870