Decline Effects: Types, Mechanisms, and Personal Reflections
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Plain English Summary
Ever noticed how a splashy scientific finding shrinks when other labs try repeating it? Protzko and Schooler lay out four flavors of this 'decline effect': the original was a fluke, a real finding got inflated by tiny studies, the effect only works under conditions nobody pinned down, or — here's the wild part — it genuinely fades over time even when everything is held constant. Schooler experienced this firsthand: his verbal overshadowing effect (describing a face in words makes you worse at recognizing it) shrank across a 30-lab replication. Refreshingly, the two authors disagree. Protzko calls most 'genuine' declines statistical mirages; Schooler entertains stranger explanations echoing quantum observer effects. Both prescribe pre-registration and large coordinated replications.
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Cites
- False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant — Simmons, Joseph P (2011)
- The Garden of Forking Paths: Why Multiple Comparisons Can Be a Problem, Even When There Is No "Fishing Expedition" or "P-Hacking" and the Research Hypothesis Was Posited Ahead of Time — Gelman, Andrew (2013)
- Replication Unreliability in Psychology: Elusive Phenomena or "Elusive" Statistical Power? — Tressoldi, Patrizio E (2012)
- Experimenter Effects and the Remote Detection of Staring — Wiseman, Richard (1997)
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📋 Cite this paper
Protzko, John, Schooler, Jonathan W (2017). Decline Effects: Types, Mechanisms, and Personal Reflections. Psychological Science Under Scrutiny: Recent Challenges and Proposed Solutions (Wiley). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119095910.ch6
@article{protzko_2017_decline_effects,
title = {Decline Effects: Types, Mechanisms, and Personal Reflections},
author = {Protzko, John and Schooler, Jonathan W},
year = {2017},
journal = {Psychological Science Under Scrutiny: Recent Challenges and Proposed Solutions (Wiley)},
doi = {10.1002/9781119095910.ch6},
}