Registered Replication Report

Abstract

According to the facial feedback hypothesis, people's affective responses can be influenced by their own facial expression (e.g., smiling, pouting), even when their expression did not result from their emotional experiences. For example, Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988) instructed participants to rate the funniness of cartoons using a pen that they held in their mouth. In line with the facial feedback hypothesis, when participants held the pen with their teeth (inducing a "smile"), they rated the cartoons as funnier than when they held the pen with their lips (inducing a "pout"). This seminal study of the facial feedback hypothesis has not been replicated directly. This Registered Replication Report describes the results of 17 independent direct replications of Study 1 from Strack et al. (1988), all of which followed the same vetted protocol. A meta-analysis of these studies examined the difference in funniness ratings between the "smile" and "pout" conditions. The original Strack et al. (1988) study reported a rating difference of 0.82 units on a 10-point Likert scale. Our meta-analysis revealed a rating difference of 0.03 units with a 95% confidence interval ranging from -0.11 to 0.16.

Research on Research: A Meta-Scientific Study of Problems and Solutions in Psychological Science

“…Other multi-lab initiatives also failed to replicate key findings in psychology (Alogna et al, 2014;Eerland et al, 2016;Hagger et al, 2016;Wagenmakers et al, 2016) There are several possible explanations for the low replicability rates in psychology.…”

“…As we showed in Chapter 7, replications are informative if they have high power and are not affected by publication bias and related biases caused by researcher degrees of freedom. One way to ensure both is through Registered Replication Reports (RRR; Association for Psychological Science, n.d.; examples are Alogna et al, 2014;Eerland et al, 2016;Wagenmakers et al, 2016). In an RRR, researchers first submit a preregistration of the research plan, which is then reviewed by peer reviewers and the author(s) of the original study.…”

Participant Nonnaiveté and the reproducibility of cognitive psychology

“…A recent estimate is that fewer than half of the findings in cognitive and social psychology are reproducible (Open Science Collaboration, 2015). In addition, there have been several been high-profile, preregistered, multi-lab failures to replicate wellknown effects psychology (Eerland et al, 2016;Hagger et al, 2016;Wagenmakers et al, 2016). A similar multi-lab replication psychology that was considered successful yielded an effect size that was much smaller than the original (Alogna et al 2014).…”

Incidental Haptic Sensations May Not Influence Social Judgments: A Purely Confirmatory Replication Attempt of Study 1 by Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh (2010)

“…An empirical prediction from this is that cognitive states (e.g., feeling confident) can trigger corresponding bodily states (e.g., walking upright) and vice versa (Barsalou, 2008). In support of embodiment theories, previous work has shown that stimulating facial muscles to facilitate smiling can induce positive affect (e.g., Strack, Martin, & Stepper, 1988; but see Wagenmakers et al, 2016), whereas having people make a pushing-away movement with their arms can induce negative affect (e.g., Cacioppo, Priester, & Berntson, 1993; but see Rotteveel et al, 2015). Furthermore, embodiment theories suggest that haptic information can also become linked to more abstract concepts, such as importance and seriousness.…”