Consider the robust phenomenon of anchoring, where people’s numerical estimates are biased towards arbitrary starting points. What does it mean to say “the” effect size of anchoring? It surely depends on moderators like domain of the estimate, expertise, and perceived informativeness of the anchor. Alright, how about “the average” effect-size of anchoring? That's simple enough….
Category: Unexpectedly Difficult Statistical Concepts
[27] Thirty-somethings are Shrinking and Other U-Shaped Challenges
A recent Psych Science (.pdf) paper found that sports teams can perform worse when they have too much talent. For example, in Study 3 they found that NBA teams with a higher percentage of talented players win more games, but that teams with the highest levels of talented players win fewer games. The hypothesis is easy enough…
[20] We cannot afford to study effect size in the lab
Methods people often say – in textbooks, task forces, papers, editorials, over coffee, in their sleep – that we should focus more on estimating effect sizes rather than testing for significance. I am kind of a methods person, and I am kind of going to say the opposite. Only kind of the opposite because it…
[17] No-way Interactions
This post shares a shocking and counterintuitive fact about studies looking at interactions where effects are predicted to get smaller (attenuated interactions). I needed a working example and went with Fritz Strack et al.’s (1988, .html) famous paper [933 Google cites], in which participants rated cartoons as funnier if they saw them while holding a…