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Do Student Samples Provide an Accurate Estimate of the General Public?
Open accessAbstract
Most psychological studies rely on student samples. Students are usually considered as more homogenous than representative samples both within and across countries. However, little is known about the nature of the differences between student and representative samples. This is an important gap, also because knowledge about the degree of difference between student and representative samples may allow to infer from the former to the latter group. Across 59 countries and 12 personality (Big-5) and attitudinal variables we found that differences between students and general public were partly substantial, incoherent, and contradicted previous findings. Two often used cultural variables, embeddedness and intellectual autonomy, failed to explain the differences between both groups across countries. We further found that students vary as much as the general population both between and within countries. In summary, our results indicate that generalizing from students to the general public can be problematic when personal and attitudinal variables are used, as students vary mostly randomly from the general public. Findings are also discussed in terms of the replication crisis within psychology.
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“A further comment, which is true for much psychology literature (e.g., Hanel & Vione, 2016), is that most of this research depends on student samples, most commonly psychology student samples.”
From Factors Related to Mean Score Group Differences on Cognitive Ability Tests: A Systematic Review (2025) · cites this paper as Hanel & Vione, 2016
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Kunst, J. R., Juettemeier, M., Bailey, A. H., Anjum, G., English, A. S., Obaidi, M., Sam, D. L., Yaşın-Tekizoğlu, F., & Agyemang, C. B. (2023) · Group Processes & Intergroup Relations · doi:10.1177/13684302231200168 · Cited by 2
“Both studies are limited in that they relied on student samples across countries (Hanel & Vione, 2016).”
Bradford, B. C. (2023) · ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale · doi:10.1145/3573051.3596189 · Cited by 2
“One of the advantages of administering this and other surveys at scale is that large-scale online studies offer researchers access to a far broader sample than typical psychological studies [20], which tend to be based on undergraduate student samples that are not representative of the US population [9].”
BackgroundLiu, Y., & Nalla, M. K. (2023) · Asian journal of Criminology · doi:10.1007/s11417-023-09399-6 · Cited by 2
“Research in the Western context suggests that college students tend to differ from the general population in their attitudes toward social justice issues (e.g., Ferguson & Ireland, 2006; Hanel & Vione, 2016; Maggard et al., 2012).”
BackgroundThe Naturalistic Cannabis Administration Protocol (NCAP): A Proof-of-Concept Study
Pierre, M. S., Daniels, S., Sanchez, T., Holtzman, S., Russo, E. B., & Walsh, Z. (2022) · Journal of Psychoactive Drugs · doi:10.1080/02791072.2022.2125466 · Cited by 2
Papathanasiou, C., & Apostolidis, T. (2022) · Sociology International Journal · doi:10.15406/sij.2022.06.00289 · Cited by 2
Shaheen, A. A. L., Hamid, H. S. A., & Siaw, Y.-L. (2022) · International Journal of Education Psychology and Counseling · doi:10.35631/ijepc.746002 · Cited by 4
“This is done with the premise of educational level homogeneity and other psychographic characteristics, as well as the consideration of convenience (Hanel & Vione, 2016; Peterson & Merunka, 2014).”
BackgroundTan, W.-L., & Khader, M. (2022) · Legal and Criminological Psychology · doi:10.1111/lcrp.12208 · Cited by 2
Validation of the Need for Competing Inventory
Bugten, J. B., Lugo, R., & Steptoe, K. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.721903 · Cited by 2
Preconceitos que se Cruzam: A Relação entre o Racismo, Sexismo e Valores
Amorim, A. K. F., Barbosa, L. H. G. M., Vione, K. C., Ferreira, O. D. L., Mariano, T. E., & Silva, F. L. (2021) · Psico-USF · doi:10.1590/1413-82712021260205 · Cited by 14
Self-citationPerceptions of familiar and unfamiliar ear- and eyewitnesses
Harvey, M. B., Bruer, K., & Price, H. L. (2021) · Psychiatry, Psychology and Law · doi:10.1080/13218719.2021.1910588 · Cited by 2
“Both an online community sample and an undergraduate sample were utilized to broaden the generalizability of the current research (see Bornstein et al., 2017; Hanel & Vione, 2016, for further explanation).”
MethodRomani, A. Q., Brandão, M. P., Sudzina, F., Bo, I. G., & Mikkelsen, B. E. (2021) · Current Psychology · doi:10.1007/s12144-021-01422-2 · Cited by 6
The experience of Hope among Italian undergraduate students
Pretto, L. D., Mansilla, O. P., Russo, E., Shin, S., & Tan, D. (2020) · Current Psychology · doi:10.1007/s12144-020-01057-9 · Cited by 2
Applying conventional agency theory to prediction of employee self-reporting performance behaviour
Nsor-Ambala, R. (2020) · doi:10.1108/ijppm-03-2019-0144 · Cited by 2
de Almeida, L. R., Pope, P. A., & Hansen, P. (2020) · Language Cognition and Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/23273798.2020.1799046 · Cited by 2
“Convenience sampling is a common limitation in experimental research with humans, and a topic of current debate (Hanel & Vione, 2016; Jager et al., 2017), as samples may not be representative of the target population, here “young adults”.”
BackgroundFactor mixture analysis of paranoia in young people
Preti, A., Massidda, D., Cella, M., Raballo, A., Scanu, R., Tronci, D., Gabbrielli, M., Muratore, T., Carta, M. G., & Петретто, Д. Р. (2018) · Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology · doi:10.1007/s00127-018-1642-7 · Cited by 5
Muniz, F., & án, F. G. (2021) · Journal of Brand Management · doi:10.1057/s41262-021-00230-0 · Cited by 29
Zhang, X., & Du, J. (2026) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103171 · Cited by 1
Espinosa, J., Cavalli, C. M., Bentosela, M., Bhadra, A., & Stevens, J. R. (2026) · Current Directions in Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/09637214261450055
Running virtual reality experiments online: A brief introduction and tutorial
Kumle, L., Brazier, A., Kovoor, J., Keil, J. S., Nobre, A. C., & Draschkow, D. (2026) · Behavior Research Methods · doi:10.3758/s13428-026-03025-w · Cited by 2
“While concerns about representativeness are not unique to remote VR studies (e.g., Hanel & Vione, 2016; Henrich et al., 2010), researchers should consider how VR-specific sampling limitations may influence generalisability, particularly for research areas where demographic or experiential factors…”
Institutional path dependence in European short-term rental regulation
Sardo, A., Grillo, A., Kaczmarek, A., & Durán, A. D. M. (2026) · Regional studies · doi:10.1080/00343404.2026.2636091 · Cited by 1
Salton, J., Porter, A., Jago, R., Brunstrom, J. M., & Ferriday, D. (2026) · Appetite · doi:10.1016/j.appet.2026.108534 · Cited by 1
Douglas, E., Morgan, E. J., Sanchez, L., Aguilar, J., & Woodhull, I. (2026) · Child Protection and Practice · doi:10.1016/j.chipro.2026.100284 · Cited by 1
The Double Standard of Stigma: Gender and Compulsive Sexual Behaviour
Snaychuk, L. A., Coelho, S. G., Bőthe, B., Molnar, M., Deska, J. C., Lindsay, B. L., Szeto, A. C. H., & Kim, H. S. A. (2025) · Sexual Health & Compulsivity · doi:10.1080/10720162.2025.2604021 · Cited by 1
“First, studies using student samples may not be generalizable, especially in cases where attitudes are measured (Hanel & Vione, 2016).”
Epstein, R., Godoy, S., Wang, N., & Newland, A. (2025) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-025-30555-8 · Cited by 2
“We suggest that our large and diverse sample is certainly more informative than the traditional social science study conducted with a few hundred students at a single college or university 167,168 .”
Metadata
- Authors
- Hanel, P. H. P., & Vione, K. C.
- Affiliations
- Cardiff University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Hanel, Paul H. P.
- ORCID
- Hanel, Paul H. P.
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2016-12-21
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- e0168354
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5176168
- OpenAlex
- W2569236205
- Cited by
- 510
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 45 · 2025: 48 · 2024: 71 · 2023: 59 · 2022: 56 · 2021: 80 · 2020: 87 · 2019: 40 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 5
- FWCI
- 23.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (acceptedVersion)
- Open Access at Essex (University of Essex) (acceptedVersion)
- University of Derby Online Research Archive. (University of Derby) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- The University of Bath Online Publications Store (The University of Bath) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Pure (University of Bath) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (GB) (ES/J500197/1)
- CAPES Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Representations and Identity
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
- Keywords
- student samples, cross-cultural comparison, Big Five personality traits, attitudes, embeddedness, intellectual autonomy, sampling bias, replication crisis, cross-national comparison
- MeSH terms
- Attitude, Female, Humans, Male, Personality, Psychological Tests, Students, Knowledge, Young Adult
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