Threats to the scientific status of experimental consumer psychology

Abstract

Multiple scandals involving falsified experimental data have shaken the discipline of social psychology, and by extension, the kinds of consumer and marketing research that rely on it. A methodology thought to have unassailable scientific credentials—the statistical analysis of controlled laboratory experiments—emerges as peculiarly vulnerable to falsity, for reasons that can be traced back to selective pressure during journal publication. This article argues that absent a fundamental change in publication criteria, false experimental findings are likely to multiply over time. Alternative solutions to the multiplication of false findings are evaluated, and a recommendation to abolish journal scarcity, and thereby relieve selective pressure, is offered as the solution best able to attack the problem at its root.