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Replication studies in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce prior findings. If these studies use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to replicate may be a failure of the protocol rather than a challenge to the original finding. Formal pre-data-collection peer review by experts may address shortcomings and increase replicability rates. We selected 10 replication studies from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RP:P; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) for which the original authors had expressed concerns about the replication designs before data collection; only one of these studies had yielded a statistically significant effect ( p < .05). Commenters suggested that lack of adherence to expert review and low-powered tests were the reasons that most of these RP:P studies failed to replicate the original effects. We revised the replication protocols and received formal peer review prior to conducting new replication studies. We administered the RP:P and revised protocols in multiple laboratories (median number of laboratories per original study = 6.5, range = 3–9; median total sample = 1,279.5, range = 276–3,512) for high-powered tests of each original finding with both protocols. Overall, following the preregistered analysis plan, we found that the revised protocols produced effect sizes similar to those of the RP:P protocols (Δ r = .002 or .014, depending on analytic approach). The median effect size for the revised protocols ( r = .05) was similar to that of the RP:P protocols ( r = .04) and the original RP:P replications ( r = .11), and smaller than that of the original studies ( r = .37). Analysis of the cumulative evidence across the original studies and the corresponding three replication attempts provided very precise estimates of the 10 tested effects and indicated that their effect sizes (median r = .07, range = .00–.15) were 78% smaller, on average, than the original effect sizes (median r = .37, range = .19–.50).

Replication efforts in psychological science sometimes fail to replicate prior findings. If replications use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to replicate may be a failure of the replication protocol rather than a challenge to the original finding. Formal pre-data collection peer review by experts may address shortcomings and increase replicability rates. We selected 10 replications from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RP:P; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) in which the original authors had expressed concerns about the replication designs before data collection and only one of which was “statistically significant” (p &lt; .05). Commenters on RP:P suggested that lack of adherence to expert review and low-powered tests were the reasons that most of these failed to replicate (Gilbert et al., 2016). We revised the replication protocols and received formal peer review prior to conducting new replications. We administered the RP:P and Revised replication protocols in multiple laboratories (Median number of laboratories per original study = XX; Range XX to YY; Median total sample = XX; Range XX to YY) for high-powered tests of each original finding with both protocols. Overall, XX of 10 RP:P protocols and XX of 10 Revised protocols showed significant evidence in the same direction as the original finding (p &lt; .05), compared to an expected XX. The median effect size was [larger/smaller/similar] for Revised protocols (ES = .XX) compared to RP:P protocols (ES = .XX), and [larger/smaller/similar] compared to the original studies (ES = .XX) and [larger/smaller/similar] compared to the original RP:P replications (ES = .XX). Overall, Revised protocols produced [much larger/somewhat larger/similar] effect sizes compared to RP:P protocols (ES = .XX). We also elicited peer beliefs about the replications through prediction markets and surveys of a group of researchers in psychology. The peer researchers predicted that the Revised protocols would [decrease/not affect/increase] the replication rate, [consistent with/not consistent with] the observed replication results. The results suggest that the lack of replicability of these findings observed in RP:P was [partly/completely/not] due to discrepancies in the RP:P protocols that could be resolved with expert peer review.

Albarracín et al. (2008, Experiment 7) tested whether priming action or inaction goals (vs. no goal) and then satisfying those goals (vs. not satisfying them) would be associated with subsequent cognitive responding. They hypothesized and found that priming action or inaction goals that were not satisfied resulted in greater or lesser responding, respectively, compared with not priming goals ( N = 98). Sonnleitner and Voracek (2015) attempted to directly replicate Albarracín et al.’s (2008) study with German participants ( N = 105). They did not find evidence for the 3 × 2 interaction or the expected main effect of task type. The current study attempted to directly replicate Albarracín et al. (2008), Experiment 7, with a larger sample of participants ( N = 1,690) from seven colleges and universities in the United States. We also extended the study design by using a scrambled-sentence task to prime goals instead of the original task of completing word fragments, allowing us to test whether study protocol moderated any effects of interest. We did not detect moderation by protocol in the full 3 × 2 × 2 design (pseudo- r2 = 0.05%). Results for both protocols were largely consistent with Sonnleitner and Voracek’s findings (pseudo- r2s = 0.14% and 0.50%). We consider these results in light of recent findings concerning priming methods and discuss the robustness of action-/inaction-goal priming to the implementation of different protocols in this particular context.

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