The authors use infrared thermography measurements of skin temperature to non-invasively assess the heat production of Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT). In species other than humans, BAT has been linked to maternal care, and may thus be crucial for understanding differences in attachment security. Whereas early BAT research measured its relative presence in the human body through radioactive tracers, infrared thermography measurement of skin temperature in cold conditions has recently been proposed as an evaluation of BAT thermogenesis. Infrared thermography relies on comparing skin temperature in the supraclavicular region, (where a BAT depot is located), with skin temperature in the sternal region (which contains no BAT depots). In cold conditions, the supraclavicular BAT depot produces heat, potentially allowing an assessment of the presence of BAT. We replicated an infrared thermography protocol, which previously reported an increase of 0.2 °C in supraclavicular (vs. sternal) skin temperature in cold (vs. control) conditions in only 7 adults, which probably led to overestimating the effect. With a much larger sample size (N=94 young adults) and the same protocol, we did not find any significant variation in relative (Cohen's d=0.10, 95%CI = [-0.31, 0.50]) or absolute supraclavicular skin temperature (Cohen’s d=0.11, 95%CI = [-0.30, 0.52]). Using conditional random forests, we also excluded a variety of alternative explanations for why the method failed to achieve an effect. Infrared thermographic measurements of skin temperature obtained with this protocol cannot measure BAT thermogenesis.
Central to interventions to improve the quality of romantic relationships is its measurement. Yet, to what degree is the concept of relationship quality well-defined, and, importantly, well-measured? In the present article, the authors conducted a comprehensive search of instruments measuring relationship quality in ProQuest, Web of Science, and Scopus finding a total of 599 scales, with 26 meeting our definition of romantic relationship quality. When the authors investigated the 26 scales’ overlap of item-content, they identified 25 distinct categories among 754 items (with our database of items on the OSF: https://osf.io/v964p/). The mean overlap between scales was weak (Jaccard Index correlation coefficient = 0.39), indicating that these scales were very heterogeneous. The authors then assessed to what extent researchers reported internal validity in 43 scale development-validation articles. They found that Cronbach’s Alpha was most often reported (in 91% of the articles). Other aspects were reported far less often, with 55% reporting exploratory factor analyses, 26% reporting confirmatory factor analyses, 23% reporting test-retest reliability, 7% reporting measurement invariance. The heterogeneity of measures and lack of reported general validity of romantic relationship quality points to the need for concept-driven work on the assessment of romantic relationship quality.
For more than a decade, research in psychology has been struggling to replicate many well-known and highly cited studies. This replication crisis has been the genesis for the emergence of many Big Team Science projects. One early contributor to the Big Team Science movement is the Collaborative Replication and Education Project (CREP), a large-scale collaborative project via which undergraduate students can contribute to scientific knowledge through replication studies. Not only does the CREP help students to learn and care deeply about research methods independent of the novelty of their study, it also offers an incredible contribution to the research community-at-large.
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