My Biggest Research Mistake

Adventures and Misadventures in Psychological Research

Robert J. Sternberg

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781506398846
• eBook ISBN: 9781506398839
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Applied Psychology
• Index: Psychology

My Biggest Research Mistake helps students and professionals in the field of psychological science learn from the diverse mistakes of successful psychological scientists. Through 57 personal stories drawn from the experiences of fellows in the Association for Psychological Science (APS), editor Robert J. Sternberg presents the mistakes of experts in the field as opportunities for learning, allowing students to avoid making the same mistakes in their own work.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: How I Learned to Learn From Mistakes
• Part I Failure in Conceptualizing Research
• 2 Grandiosity and Overambition
• 3 Separating Data-Based From Non-Data-Based Evaluations
• 4 Too Clever by Half
• 5 Death Is not the Answer
• 6 Thinking More Is More When Less Is More
• 7 Manipulation Checks Can Ruin Your Study
• 8 Beware of Popular Premises
• 9 The Need for Blind Testing
• 10 Finding Implicit Memory in Posthypnotic Amnesia
• 11 Social Coordination in the Wild
• 12 Data Distress
• 13 A Big Mistake in Interpreting Cultural Differences
• 14 In Praise of Pilot Studies
• 15 Start Strong, Plan Ahead
• 16 A Mistake in Studying the Role of Sleep in Speech
• 17 Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Impasse
• 18 Be as Careful After Your Study is Run as You Are Before
• 19 Lessons Learned From a Failed Experiment
• 20 Raging Hormones
• 21 A Failure in Fidelity of Experimental Treatments
• 22 Stumbling in the Dark
• 23 Pilot, Pilot, Pilot
• 24 Failure to Recognize Surface Differences Doesn’t Necessarily Imply Underlying Processing Differences
• 25 Farfel Flees From His Feast
• Part II Prematurely Jumping to Conclusions
• 26 Jumping to the Wrong Conclusion: A Lesson About People and Learning
• Part III Following a Garden Path
• 27 Why Didn’t I See It Earlier?
• 28 Losing Time
• Part IV Using Measures of Dubious Reliability/Validity
• 29 Virginity in Mate Selection
• 30 New Fields, New Errors: Breaking Rules Every Researcher Should Know
• 31 How Do We Compare Sensory or Hedonic Intensities Across Groups?
• 32 Science Marches on Its Measures
• 33 Reliability Is not Readiness
• 34 The Importance of Being There
• 35 Failure to Conduct a Pilot Study
• Part V Carelessness
• 36 Small Change—Big Mistake: Check and Check Again
• 37 Losing My Dissertation Data
• 38 Peers, Procedures, and Panic: A Careless Error That Offered a Lifetime of Benefits
• 39 Multiple Missteps: The Twin Study That Should Have Been
• 40 Always Late: Causes and Consequences Far and Wide
• 41 When Results Are Too Good to Be True, They Are Probably Not True
• Part VI Overrelying on Others
• 42 Of Course Our Program is Error-Free—Not!
• 43 Hiring a Woman to Do a Man’s Job: The Perils of Equal Opportunity Employment When Running (Ruining) Social Psychological Experiments
• 44 The Case of the Enterprising Instructor
• Part VII Error in Statistical Analysis
• 45 Self-Help Can Be No Help at All: Some Unambiguous Advice1
• 46 A Third-Variable Problem in Face Recognition
• Part VIII Generalizability of Findings
• 47 Not Establishing the Cross-Cultural Validity of Measures of Key Constructs in a High-Stakes Field Experiment
• 48 Ecological Validity: Mistaking the Lab for Real Life
• 49 A Major Error in the Evaluation of Psychological Treatments for Anxiety
• Part IX Failure to Understand the “System”
• 50 Mistakes Were Made (but not by Me)*
• 51 A Missed Opportunity to Improve on Credibility Analysis in Criminal Law
• 52 The Importance of Professional Discourse
• 53 “Nem di gelt?” or Can Accepting Grant Awards Be a Bad Thing?
• 54 Keep Your Friends Close But Keep Your Enemies Closer: With Whom Should You Share Your Creative Ideas?
• 55 Walking Ethical Tightropes in Research Collaborations
• Part X Societal Costs Outweigh Societal Benefits
• 56 The Danger of Superficial Success
• 57 Kinds of Research Mistakes
• Index