Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology
- Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology
- The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Consumer Psychology of Individuals
- 2 Consumer Psychology of Groups and Society
- 3 Methods for Understanding Consumer Psychology
- 19 Field Experimentation in Consumer Research
- 20 MTurk and Online Panel Research
- 21 Meta-analysis: Assessing Heterogeneity Using Traditional and Contemporary Approaches
- 22 Netnography for Consumer Psychologists
- 23 A Recipe for Honest Consumer Research
- Index
- References
23 - A Recipe for Honest Consumer Research
from 3 - Methods for Understanding Consumer Psychology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2023
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology
- Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology
- The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Consumer Psychology of Individuals
- 2 Consumer Psychology of Groups and Society
- 3 Methods for Understanding Consumer Psychology
- 19 Field Experimentation in Consumer Research
- 20 MTurk and Online Panel Research
- 21 Meta-analysis: Assessing Heterogeneity Using Traditional and Contemporary Approaches
- 22 Netnography for Consumer Psychologists
- 23 A Recipe for Honest Consumer Research
- Index
- References
Summary
Research in consumer research has rightfully been criticized for p-hacking, hypothesizing after the results are known, and other practices that lead to overestimation of the reliability and replicability of published results. Remediation has centered on more closely approximating the ideal hypothetico-deductive (i.e., confirmatory) method. There has been a push toward forming, and registering, selective hypotheses before running experiments, testing only those hypotheses, and testing each hypothesis with a single, preplanned analysis. We argue that doing better confirmatory experiments is not the (whole) solution and that HARKing and running multiple analyses are not the problem per se. The problem is that we misrepresent exploratory research as confirmatory. Forcing exploratory research into a hypothetico-deductive straitjacket leads to bad hypothesis testing. The straitjacket also leads to bad exploration, crowding out essential, good exploration that deserves space in our journals. We propose a recipe for more honest consumer research, in which authors report exploratory studies meant to generate hypotheses followed by truly confirmatory studies that test those hypotheses.
Keywords
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology , pp. 622 - 640Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
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