A peculiar prevalence of p values just below .05
- PMID: 22853650
- DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2012.711335
A peculiar prevalence of p values just below .05
Erratum in
- Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2012;65(11):2280
Abstract
In null hypothesis significance testing (NHST), p values are judged relative to an arbitrary threshold for significance (.05). The present work examined whether that standard influences the distribution of p values reported in the psychology literature. We examined a large subset of papers from three highly regarded journals. Distributions of p were found to be similar across the different journals. Moreover, p values were much more common immediately below .05 than would be expected based on the number of p values occurring in other ranges. This prevalence of p values just below the arbitrary criterion for significance was observed in all three journals. We discuss potential sources of this pattern, including publication bias and researcher degrees of freedom.
Comment in
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What p-hacking really looks like: a comment on Masicampo and LaLande (2012).Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2015;68(4):829-32. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2014.982664. Epub 2014 Dec 6. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2015. PMID: 25484109 No abstract available.
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