The Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP) is a frequently used laboratory measure of aggression. However, the flexibility inherent in its implementation and analysis can undermine its validity. To test whether the TAP is a valid aggression measure irrespective of this flexibility, we conducted two preregistered studies (Study 1 n = 177, Study 2 n = 167) of a standardized version of the TAP. Across both studies, TAP scores showed agreement with other laboratory aggression measures, were magnified by an experimental provocation manipulation, and were associated with traits typically linked to aggressive behavior. Mixed evidence was found for the external and discriminant validity of the task. Individual responses largely loaded onto a single component, suggesting that the aggregate scoring approach accurately represents the underlying data structure. These results provide preliminary support for the internal validity of this TAP approach and highlight the utility of preregistration in psychometric research.

Experimental manipulations in social psychology must exhibit construct validity by influencing their intended psychological constructs. Yet how do experimenters in social psychology attempt to establish the construct validity of their manipulations? Following a preregistered plan, we coded 348 experimental manipulations from the 2017 issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Representing a reliance on “on-the-fly” experimentation, the vast majority of these manipulations were created ad hoc for a given study and were not previously validated before implementation. A minority of manipulations had their construct validity evaluated by pilot testing before implementation or via a manipulation check. Of the manipulation checks administered, most were face valid, single-item self-reports, and only a few met criteria for “true” validation. In aggregate, roughly two fifths of manipulations relied solely on face validity. To the extent that they are representative of the field, these results suggest that best practices for validating manipulations are not commonplace—a potential contributor to replicability issues. These issues can be remedied by validating manipulations before implementation using validated manipulation checks, standardizing manipulation protocols, estimating the size and duration of manipulations’ effects, and estimating each manipulation’s effects on multiple constructs within the target nomological network.

Experimental manipulations in social psychology must exhibit construct validity by influencing their intended psychological constructs. Yet how do experimenters in social psychology attempt to establish the construct validity of their manipulations? Following a preregistered plan, we coded 348 experimental manipulations from the 2017 issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Representing a reliance upon ‘on the fly’ experimentation, the vast majority of these manipulations were created ad hoc for a given study and not previously validated prior to implementation. A minority of manipulations had their construct validity evaluated by pilot testing prior to implementation or via a manipulation check. Of the manipulation checks administered, most were face-valid, single item self-reports and only a few met criteria for ‘true’ validation. In aggregate, roughly two-fifths of manipulations relied solely on face validity. To the extent that they are representative of the field, these results suggest that best practices for validating manipulations are not commonplace — a potential contributor to replicability issues. These issues can be remedied by validating manipulations prior to implementation, using validated manipulation checks, standardizing manipulation protocols, estimating the size and duration of manipulations’ effects, and estimating each manipulation’s effects on multiple constructs within the target nomological network.

Background: Peer drinking is one of the most robust predictors of college students' alcohol use and can moderate students' genetic risk for alcohol use. Peer effect research generally suffers from 2 problems: selection into peer groups and relying more on perceptions of peer alcohol use than peers' selfreport. The goal of the present study was to overcome those limitations by capitalizing on a genetically informed sample of randomly assigned college roommates to examine multiple dimensions of peer influence and the interplay between peer effects and genetic predisposition on alcohol use, in the form of polygenic scores.Methods: We used a subsample (n = 755) of participants from a university-wide, longitudinal study at a large, diverse, urban university. Participants reported their own alcohol use during fall and spring and their perceptions of college peers' alcohol use in spring. We matched individuals into their rooms and residence halls to create a composite score of peer-reported alcohol use for each of those levels. We examined multiple dimensions of peer influence and whether peer influence moderated genetic predisposition to predict college students' alcohol use using multilevel models to account for clustering at the room and residence hall level.Results: We found that polygenic scores (b = 0.12), perceptions of peer drinking (b = 0.37), and roommates' self-reported drinking (b = 0.10) predicted alcohol use (all ps < 0.001), while average alcohol use across residence hall did not (b = À0.01, p = 0.86). We found no evidence for interactions between peer influence and genome-wide polygenic scores for alcohol use.Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance of genetic predisposition on individual alcohol use and support the potentially causal nature of the association between peer influence and alcohol use.

Psychopathic traits predispose individuals toward antisocial behavior. Such antagonistic acts often result in “unsuccessful” outcomes such as incarceration. What mechanisms allow some people with relatively high levels of psychopathic traits to live “successful”, unincarcerated lives, in spite of their antisocial tendencies? Using neuroimaging, we investigated the possibility that “successful” psychopathic individuals exhibited greater development of neural structures that promote “successful” self-regulation, focusing on the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). Across two structural magnetic resonance imaging studies of “successful” participants (Study 1: N = 80 individuals in long-term romantic relationships; Study 2: N = 64 undergraduates), we observed that gray matter density in the left and right VLPFC was positively associated with psychopathic traits. These preliminary results support a compensatory model of psychopathy, in which “successful” psychopathic individuals develop inhibitory mechanisms to compensate for their antisocial tendencies. Traditional models of psychopathy that emphasize deficits may be aided by such compensatory models that identify surfeits in neural and psychological processes.