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Cited by 1,350

The DOI matches its Crossref record.

Statistical significance in psychological research.

Lykken, David T.·1968·Psychological Bulletin
DOI 10.1037/h0026141
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Abstract

Most theories in the areas of personality, clinical, and social psychology predict no more than the direction of a correlation, group difference, or treatment effect. Since the null hypothesis is never strictly true, such predictions have about a SO-SO chance of being confirmed by experiment when the theory in question is false, since the statistical significance of the result is a function of the sample size. Confirmation of a single directional prediction should usually add little to one's confidence in the theory being tested. Most theories should be tested by multiple corroboration and most empirical generalizations by constructive replication. Statistical significance is perhaps the least important attribute of a good experiment; it is never a sufficient condition for claiming that a theory has been usefully corroborated, that a meaningful empirical fact has been established, or that an experimental report ought to be published. 151 In a recent journal article Sapolsky (1964) developed the following substantive theory:

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Metadata

Authors
Lykken, D. T.
Venue
Psychological Bulletin
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
1968
Volume
70
Issue
3, Pt.1
Pages
151-159
ISSN
  • 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1455
DOI
10.1037/h0026141
OpenAlex
W2165944832
Cited by
1,350
References
0
FWCI
19.38
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.