Methods for Advancing an Open, Replicable, and Inclusive Science of Social Cognition

This chapter is divided into four sections. In the first section, we describe concrete practices that researchers can use to calibrate their confidence in a significant finding to the actual strength of evidence provided by that finding. In the second section, we discuss how researchers can calibrate the scope of the conclusions they draw from a study to the stimuli and participants sampled in that study. In the third section, we highlight the importance of approaching scientific inquiry from diverse vantage points, and provide specific recommendations for enhancing diversity and inclusion in social cognition research. In the fourth section, we offer strategies that researchers in any career stage or role can use to help change our incentive structures so that they promote and support the practices recommended in the earlier sections. Together, these four sections offer researchers a roadmap for enhancing what we learn from the work that we do.