We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings, with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance, to examine variation in effect magnitudes across samples and settings. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples that comprised 15,305 participants from 36 countries and territories. Using the conventional criterion of statistical significance ( p < .05), we found that 15 (54%) of the replications provided evidence of a statistically significant effect in the same direction as the original finding. With a strict significance criterion ( p < .0001), 14 (50%) of the replications still provided such evidence, a reflection of the extremely high-powered design. Seven (25%) of the replications yielded effect sizes larger than the original ones, and 21 (75%) yielded effect sizes smaller than the original ones. The median comparable Cohen’s ds were 0.60 for the original findings and 0.15 for the replications. The effect sizes were small (< 0.20) in 16 of the replications (57%), and 9 effects (32%) were in the direction opposite the direction of the original effect. Across settings, the Q statistic indicated significant heterogeneity in 11 (39%) of the replication effects, and most of those were among the findings with the largest overall effect sizes; only 1 effect that was near zero in the aggregate showed significant heterogeneity according to this measure. Only 1 effect had a tau value greater than .20, an indication of moderate heterogeneity. Eight others had tau values near or slightly above .10, an indication of slight heterogeneity. Moderation tests indicated that very little heterogeneity was attributable to the order in which the tasks were performed or whether the tasks were administered in lab versus online. Exploratory comparisons revealed little heterogeneity between Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures and less WEIRD cultures (i.e., cultures with relatively high and low WEIRDness scores, respectively). Cumulatively, variability in the observed effect sizes was attributable more to the effect being studied than to the sample or setting in which it was studied.

Do geographic differences in collectivism relate to COVID-19 case and death rates? And if so, would they also replicate across states within arguably the most individualistic country in the world-the United States? Further still, what role might the U.S.'s history of ethnic strife and race-based health disparities play in either reinforcing or undermining state-level relations between collectivism and COVID-19 rates? To answer these questions, we examined archival data from 98 countries (Study 1) and the 48 contiguous United States (Study 2) on country/state-level collectivism, COVID-19 case/death rates, relevant covariates (per-capita GDP, population density, spatial dependence), and in the U.S., percent of non-Whites. In Study 1, country-level collectivism negatively related to both cases (r=-.28) and deaths (r=-.40) in simple regressions; however, after controlling for covariates, the former became non-significant (rp=-.07), but the latter remained significant (rp=-.20). In Study 2, state-level collectivism positively related to both cases (r=.56) and deaths (r=.41) in simple regressions, and these relationships persisted after controlling for all covariates except race, where a state's non-White population dominated all other predictors of COVID-19 cases (rp=.35) and deaths (rp=.31). We discuss the strong link between race and collectivism in U.S. culture, and its implications for understanding COVID-19 responses.

All people share a need for safety. Yet people's pursuit of safety can conflict when it comes to guns, with some people perceiving guns as a means to safety and others perceiving guns as a threat to safety. We examined this conflict on a U.S. college campus that prohibits guns. We distinguished between people (N = 11,390) who (1) own a gun for protection, (2) own a gun exclusively for reasons other than protection (e.g., collecting, sports), and (3) do not own a gun. Protection owners felt less safe on campus and supported allowing guns on campus. They also reported that they and others would feel safer and that gun violence would decrease if they carried a gun on campus. Non-owners and non-protection owners felt the reverse. The findings suggest that protection concerns, rather than gun-ownership per se, account for diverging perceptions and attitudes about guns and gun control.

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We examined whether gun ownership, and more importantly, the reason for owning a gun, is linked to expectations about what will happen if legislation allows guns on one’s college campus. We sent a web-based survey to students, faculty, and staff at a single southeastern United States university in March 2016. We queried respondents about gun ownership and the potential effects of campus carry laws on personal safety and the educational environment. We grouped respondents (N = 11,390) into gun owners who own guns for protection (protection owners), gun owners who own guns for nonprotection reasons (e.g., sport, collecting; nonprotection owners), and nonowners. Nonprotection owners and nonowners responded similarly and were generally distinct from protection owners. However, all 3 groups reported that legalizing guns on campus would harm the academic atmosphere and diminish feelings of safety when having heated exchanges or evaluating student outcomes. Ironically, protection owners acknowledge these harms yet support legislation allowing guns on campus. Regardless of group, our participants anticipated that allowing guns on campus would largely produce undesirable downstream academic consequences. Lawmakers must find ways to mitigate the possible harmful effects on personal safety and the academic environment, and find solutions that satisfy the safety needs of groups who see guns as source versus a threat to safety.

Awareness of stereotypes about a person’s in-group can affect a person’s behavior and performance when they complete a stereotype-relevant task, a phenomenon called stereotype susceptibility. Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady (1999) primed Asian American women with either their Asian identity (stereotyped with high math ability) or female identity (stereotyped with low math ability) or no priming before administering a math test. Of the three groups, Asian-primed participants performed best on the math test, female-primed participants performed worst. The article is a citation classic, but the original studies and conceptual replications have low sample sizes and wide confidence intervals. We conducted a replication of Shih et al. (1999) with a large sample and found a significant effect with the same pattern of means after removing participants that did not know the race or gender stereotypes, but not when those participants were retained. Math identification did not moderate the observed effects.

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Environmental perils pose threats that require mitigation. Mitigation requires knowledge of the threat. Ironically, people may opt to avoid information about an environmental peril, especially if they lack resources to respond and the mitigation burden is high or costly. Three experiments (N = 845) examined how available resources and the resource burden of responding to an environmental peril affect the perceived of burden of taking action, and how perceiving burden, in turn, affects avoidance of information about the threat. Experiments 1a and 1b revealed that lower perceived likelihood of taking action and low income predicted a greater tendency to avoid hurricane risk information among Florida residents. Experiment 2 examined receptivity to information about home radon levels and manipulated the burden required to make repairs ($200 vs. $2,000). Having low income and learning repairs were costly corresponded with greater perceived burden of taking action, which predicted a lower likelihood to repair and greater information avoidance. These findings demonstrate that facing a high mitigation burden and lacking resources can lead to remaining uninformed about risks posed by environmental perils. Remaining uninformed is problematic because it may increase people's vulnerability to damage from these threats. However, these findings also identify a potential pathway for intervention. Reminding people of resources they may be unaware of will likely increase their likelihood of preparation and decrease information avoidance.