Data Availability Statement: All data and materials are publicly accessible at https://osf.io/rfgdw/. Also, we preregistered our study design and analysis plan. You can find the preregistration at https://osf.io/ipkea/.Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.Competing Interests: Brian Nosek created the badges to acknowledge open practices, and Brian Nosek and Mallory Kidwell are on a committee maintaining the badges. The badges and specifications for earning them are CC0 licensed with and in four comparison journals. We report an increase in reported data sharing of more than an order of magnitude from baseline in Psychological Science, as well as an increase in reported materials sharing, although to a weaker degree. Moreover, we show that reportedly available data and materials were more accessible, correct, usable, and complete when badges were earned. We demonstrate that badges are effective incentives that improve the openness, accessibility, and persistence of data and materials that underlie scientific research.

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 sample and setting. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples and 15,305 total participants from 36 countries and territories. Using conventional statistical significance (p < .05), fifteen (54%) of the replications provided evidence in the same direction and statistically significant as the original finding. With a strict significance criterion (p < .0001), fourteen (50%) provide such evidence reflecting the extremely high powered design. Seven (25%) of the replications had effect sizes larger than the original finding and 21 (75%) had effect sizes smaller than the original finding. The median comparable Cohen’s d effect sizes for original findings was 0.60 and for replications was 0.15. Sixteen replications (57%) had small effect sizes (< .20) and 9 (32%) were in the opposite direction from the original finding. Across settings, 11 (39%) showed significant heterogeneity using the Q statistic and most of those were among the findings eliciting the largest overall effect sizes; only one effect that was near zero in the aggregate showed significant heterogeneity. Only one effect showed a Tau > 0.20 indicating moderate heterogeneity. Nine others had a Tau near or slightly above 0.10 indicating slight heterogeneity. In moderation tests, very little heterogeneity was attributable to task order, administration in lab versus online, and exploratory WEIRD versus less WEIRD culture comparisons. Cumulatively, variability in observed effect sizes was more attributable to the effect being studied than the sample or setting in which it was studied.

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COVID-19 conspiracy theories emerged almost immediately after the beginning of the pandemic, and the number of believers does not appear to decline. Believing in these theories can negatively affect adherence to safety guidelines and vaccination intentions, potentially endangering the lives of many. Thus, one part in successfully fighting the pandemic is to understand the antecedents and consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, which are here presented in a rapid review summarizing research from more than 28 countries. We evaluate the contribution of individual difference variables (demographic variables, personality traits, coping with threat and uncertainty), beliefs, biases, and attitudes (epistemically suspect beliefs, thinking styles and cognitive biases, attitudes towards science), and social factors (group identities, trust in authorities, social media) to COVID-19 conspiracy theories. We discuss the consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs in regard to safeguarding behaviours (hygiene, distancing, and mask-wearing), self-centred (hoarding) and misguided behaviours (pseudoscientific practices), vaccination intentions, mental health and negative social consequences (e.g., discrimination and violence). Differences between countries as well as various conspiracy theories are considered. Summarising, we suggest that belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories is boosted by low levels of trust in a context of threat and low levels of comprehensive, accessible information in a context of uncertainty and unknowns. We conclude that research is urgently needed to address potential interventions to (re-)establish trust and provide accessible information about COVID-19.

English-speakers sometimes say that they feel moved to tears, emotionally touched, stirred, or that something warmed their heart; other languages use similar passive contact metaphors to refer to an affective state. We propose and measure the concept of kama muta to understand experiences often given these and other labels. Do the same experiences evoke the same kama muta emotion across nations and languages? We conducted studies in 19 different countries, five continents, 15 languages, with a total of 3542 participants. We tested the construct while validating a comprehensive scale to measure the appraisals, valence, bodily sensations, motivation, and lexical labels posited to characterize kama muta. Our results are congruent with theory and previous findings showing that kama muta is a distinct positive social relational emotion that is evoked by experiencing or observing a sudden intensification of communal sharing. It is commonly accompanied by a warm feeling in the chest, moist eyes or tears, chills or piloerection, feeling choked up or having a lump in the throat, buoyancy and exhilaration. It motivates affective devotion and moral commitment to communal sharing. While we observed some variations across cultures, these five facets of kama muta are highly correlated in every sample, supporting the validity of the construct and the measure.

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Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and mainly human phenomenon. The persistence of this behavior throughout adulthood has fascinated and puzzled many researchers. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue that binds individuals together and triggers social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were typically conducted only across Western participants, resulting in limited generalizability. The present study examines this effect across 36 countries spanning all populated continents, providing the most comprehensive investigation of the social effects of tearful crying to-date. Next to testing possible mediating factors, we also examine a number of moderating factors, including the crier’s gender and group membership, the situational valence (positive or negative situations), the social context (in private or public settings), the perceived appropriateness of crying, and trait empathy of the observer. The current work can inform theories on crying across the social sciences.

Replications in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce 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 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 < .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 (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 protocols in multiple laboratories (Median number of laboratories per original study = 6.5; Range 3 to 9; Median total sample = 1279.5; Range 276 to 3512) for high-powered tests of each original finding with both protocols. Overall, Revised protocols produced similar effect sizes as RP:P protocols following the preregistered analysis plan (Δr = .002 or .014, depending on analytic approach). The median effect size for Revised protocols (r = .05) was similar to RP:P protocols (r = .04) and the original RP:P replications (r = .11), and smaller than the original studies (r = .37). The cumulative evidence of original study and three replication attempts suggests that effect sizes for all 10 (median r = .07; range .00 to .15) are 78% smaller on average than original findings (median r = .37; range .19 to .50), with very precisely estimated effects.