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Justify your alpha

Nature Human Behaviour volume 2, pages 168–171 (2018)Cite this article

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In response to recommendations to redefine statistical significance to P ≤ 0.005, we propose that researchers should transparently report and justify all choices they make when designing a study, including the alpha level.

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Fig. 1: The proportion of studies3 replicated at α = 0.05 (with a bin width of 0.005).

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Barr, F. Cheung, D. Colquhoun, H. IJzerman, H. Motulsky and R. Morey for helpful discussions while drafting this Comment. D.L. was supported by Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek 452-17-013. F.G.A. was supported by CONICET. M.A.J.A. was funded by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council AFL Fellowship (BB/M013596/1). G.S.C. was supported by the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford. Z.C. was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number C106891X). E.S.C. was supported by the European Research Council (ERC-2015-StG-677270). L.D. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC-2014-CoG-647910 KINSHIP). A.-L.v.H. is funded by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (DH150176). M.R.H. was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant SBE SPRF-FR 1714446. J.Lao was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation grant 100014_156490/1. C.L.d.O. was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico. A.E.M. was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom (grant number ES/K009095/1). J.-J.O.d.X. is supported by an internal grant from the KU Leuven (STG/14/054) and by the Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (1519916N). S.P. was supported by the European Research Council (FP7/2007–2013; ERC grant agreement no. 324176). G.M.A.L. was funded by Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek 453-14-016. S.G.S. is supported by a Cancer Research UK Fellowship (C42785/A17965). V.S. was supported by the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke Intramural Research Program (IRP). M.A.V. was supported by grant 2016-T1/SOC-1395 from Comunidad de Madrid. T.Y. was supported by National Institutes of Health award R01MH109682.

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  1. Unaffiliated: michael.ingre@gmail.com

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human-Technology Interaction, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Daniel Lakens

  2. National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Federico G. Adolfi

  3. Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt, Germany

    Federico G. Adolfi

  4. Heymans Institute for Psychological Research, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Casper J. Albers

  5. College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Farid Anvari

  6. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Matthew A. J. Apps & Sam Parsons

  7. Department of Computer Science, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA

    Shlomo E. Argamon

  8. Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    Thom Baguley

  9. Faculty of Linguistics and Literature, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Raymond B. Becker

  10. Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA

    Stephen D. Benning

  11. Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Daniel E. Bradford

  12. Psychology, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO, USA

    Erin M. Buchanan

  13. Health, Human Performance, and Recreation, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

    Aaron R. Caldwell

  14. Department of Development and Regeneration, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Ben Van Calster

  15. Department of Medical Statistics and Bioinformatics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Ben Van Calster

  16. Department of Psychology, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden

    Rickard Carlsson

  17. Department of Human Development and Psychology, Tzu-Chi University, Hualien City, Taiwan

    Sau-Chin Chen

  18. Department of Surgery, University of British Columbia, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Bryan Chung

  19. Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Lincoln J. Colling

  20. Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Gary S. Collins

  21. Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Zander Crook & Andrea E. Martin

  22. School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, UK

    Emily S. Cross

  23. Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Emily S. Cross & Lisa DeBruine

  24. Ramsey Decision Theoretics, Washington, DC, USA

    Sameera Daniels

  25. Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Henrik Danielsson

  26. College of Social Work, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Daniel J. Dunleavy

  27. Departments of Psychology and Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Brian D. Earp

  28. Department of English, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA

    Michele I. Feist

  29. Department of Psychology, St. Edward’s University, Austin, TX, USA

    Jason D. Ferrell

  30. Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Jason D. Ferrell & Tal Yarkoni

  31. Department of Management, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    James G. Field

  32. Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Nicholas W. Fox

  33. Department of Political Science, Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Amanda Friesen

  34. Booking.com, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Caio Gomes

  35. Department of English, American and Romance Studies, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Monica Gonzalez-Marquez

  36. School of Psychology, Keele University, Keele, UK

    James A. Grange

  37. Centre of Excellence for Statistical Innovation, UCB Celltech, Slough, UK

    Andrew P. Grieve

  38. Translational Neurosurgery, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Robert Guggenberger

  39. International Centre for Ethics in Sciences and Humanities, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Robert Guggenberger

  40. Department of Radiology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    James Grist

  41. Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Anne-Laura van Harmelen

  42. Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Fred Hasselman

  43. Department of Psychology, University of Chester, Chester, UK

    Kevin D. Hochard

  44. Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Mark R. Hoffarth

  45. School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Nicholas P. Holmes & Christopher R. Madan

  46. Department of Psychology, Education, and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Michael Ingre & Rolf A. Zwaan

  47. Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Linköping, Linköping, Sweden

    Peder M. Isager

  48. School of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Hanna K. Isotalus

  49. Occupational Orthopaedics and Research, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Christer Johansson

  50. The Faculty of Modern Languages and Literatures, Institute of Linguistics, Psycholinguistics Department, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

    Konrad Juszczyk

  51. Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    David A. Kenny

  52. Center for Stroke Research Berlin, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Ahmed A. Khalil

  53. Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

    Ahmed A. Khalil

  54. Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Ahmed A. Khalil

  55. Social Sciences, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

    Barbara Konat

  56. Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Junpeng Lao

  57. School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Erik Gahner Larsen

  58. Department of Sociology/ICS, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Gerine M. A. Lodder

  59. Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jiří Lukavský

  60. Pardee RAND Graduate School, RAND Corporation, Arlington, VA, USA

    David Manheim

  61. Psychology and Neuroscience, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA

    Stephen R. Martin

  62. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Andrea E. Martin

  63. Department of Philosophy, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Deborah G. Mayo

  64. Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA

    Randy J. McCarthy

  65. School of Mathematics and Statistics, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Kevin McConway

  66. Skyscanner, Edinburgh, UK

    Colin McFarland

  67. School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King’s College London, London, UK

    Amanda Q. X. Nio

  68. Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Gustav Nilsonne

  69. Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Stockholm, Sweden

    Gustav Nilsonne

  70. Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Gustav Nilsonne

  71. Laboratory of Behavioral Neurobiology, Department of Physiological Sciences, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil

    Cilene Lino de Oliveira

  72. Department of Kinesiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry

  73. Department of Psychology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Gerit Pfuhl

  74. Department of Psychology, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Kimberly A. Quinn

  75. Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    John J. Sakon

  76. Department of Psychology, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey

    S. Adil Saribay

  77. Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Iris K. Schneider

  78. Saudi Human Genome Program, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Manojkumar Selvaraju

  79. Integrated Gulf Biosystems, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Manojkumar Selvaraju

  80. Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Zsuzsika Sjoerds

  81. Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Zsuzsika Sjoerds

  82. Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Samuel G. Smith

  83. Institute for Media Studies, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Tim Smits

  84. Center for Open Science, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Jeffrey R. Spies

  85. Department of Engineering and Society, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Jeffrey R. Spies

  86. Surgical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Vishnu Sreekumar

  87. Department of Psychology, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN, USA

    Crystal N. Steltenpohl

  88. Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Neil Stenhouse

  89. Department of Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Wojciech Świątkowski

  90. Departamento de Psicología Básica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel A. Vadillo

  91. Department of Methodology and Statistics, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Marcel A. L. M. Van Assen

  92. Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Marcel A. L. M. Van Assen

  93. School of Psychology, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

    Matt N. Williams

  94. Psychology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Samantha E. Williams

  95. Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Donald R. Williams

  96. Marketing Department, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Ignazio Ziano

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Contributions

D.L., N.W.F., M.G.-M., J.A.G., N.P.H., A.A.K., S.R.M., V.S., S.D.B. and C.N.S. participated in brainstorming, drafting the Comment and data analysis. C.J.A., S.E.A., T.B., E.M.B., B.V.C., Z.C., G.S.C., S.D., D.J.D., B.D.E., J.D.F., J.G.F., A.-L.v.H., M.I., P.M.I., H.K.I., J.Lao, G.M.A.L., D.M., A.E.M., K.M., A.Q.X.N., G.N., C.L.d.O., J.-J.O.d.X., G.P, K.A.Q., I.K.S., Z.S., S.G.S., J.R.S., M.A.L.M.V.A., M.N.W., D.R.W., T.Y. and R.A.Z. participated in brainstorming and drafting the Comment. F.G.A., R.B.B., M.I.F., F.H. and S.P. participated in drafting the Comment and data analysis. M.A.J.A., D.E.B., S.-C.C., B.C., L.J.C., H.D., L.D., M.R.H., E.G.L., R.J.M., J.J.S., S.A.S., T.S., N.S., W.Ś. and M.A.V. participated in brainstorming. F.A., A.R.C., R.C., E.S.C., A.F, C.G., A.P.G., R.G., J.G., K.D.H, C.J., K.J, D.A.K., B.K., J.Lukavský, C.R.M., D.G.M., C.M., M.S., S.E.W. I.Z. did not participate in drafting the Comment because the points that they would have raised had already been incorporated, or they endorse a sufficiently large part of the contents as if participation had occurred. Except for the first author, authorship order is alphabetical.

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Correspondence to Daniel Lakens.

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Lakens, D., Adolfi, F.G., Albers, C.J. et al. Justify your alpha. Nat Hum Behav 2, 168–171 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0311-x

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