Psychological Science Accelerator

Psychological Science Accelerator
Name	Psychological Science Accelerator
Formation	2015
Type	Research network
Headquarters	Distributed
Region served	Global

Psychological Science Accelerator The Psychological Science Accelerator is an international research network that coordinates large-scale, multi-lab studies in psychological science to improve reproducibility and generalizability. The Accelerator conducts preregistered replications, coordinated experiments, and meta-science initiatives involving researchers across continents, collaborating with institutions, funders, and journals to influence standards in empirical practice.

Overview

The Accelerator operates as a distributed consortium that supports collaborative projects designed to test theories across diverse populations, integrating methods from experimental psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology while interfacing with stakeholders such as universities, publishers, and funders. Key activities include coordinating multi-site data collection, preregistration of hypotheses, and pooled analyses that draw on volunteers at universities like Harvard University, University of Cambridge, Stanford University, University of Oxford, and University of Toronto as well as research centers such as Max Planck Society, CNRS, Karolinska Institutet, Australian National University, and University of Cape Town. The network emphasizes transparent practices championed in initiatives like Open Science Framework, replication projects inspired by the Reproducibility Project (psychology), and methodological reforms advocated at conferences such as Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

History and Development

The Accelerator emerged from conversations among researchers responsive to crises of confidence highlighted by high-profile events including the Reproducibility Project (psychology), debates at meetings like Association for Psychological Science, and critiques in venues such as Nature (journal) and Science (journal). Founding collaborators included scholars affiliated with institutions like University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, New York University, University of Amsterdam, and University of Melbourne, and drew support from funders and initiatives associated with organizations like National Institutes of Health, European Research Council, John Templeton Foundation, and private foundations. Over time the Accelerator formalized governance, developed protocols influenced by standards from bodies such as Committee on Publication Ethics, and expanded during events including symposia at Society for Research in Child Development and panels at Psychonomic Society meetings.

Organizational Structure and Governance

The Accelerator's governance model combines steering committees, regional coordinators, project teams, and working groups, with leadership drawn from faculty and researchers at institutions like Princeton University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Duke University, and McGill University. Administrative procedures incorporate ethical oversight consistent with review boards at universities such as King's College London and University of Pennsylvania, and data management practices compatible with platforms like Dataverse and Zenodo. Decision-making is informed by advisory councils with members connected to journals including Psychological Science (journal), Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Perspectives on Psychological Science as well as consortia like Center for Open Science.

Research Programs and Methods

The Accelerator runs programs that include coordinated experiments, large-scale replications, meta-analyses, and methods development, employing designs that leverage randomized controlled trials, factorial experiments, preregistration, and open data practices. Projects use standardized materials and translations vetted by contributors from institutions such as University of São Paulo, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Seoul National University, and University of Nairobi, and adopt statistical approaches promoted in texts like The Practice of Statistics and software environments like R (programming language), Python (programming language), and JASP (software). Methodological innovations include heterogeneity analyses, multilevel modeling, and crowd-sourced stimulus creation, building on frameworks advanced by groups at University of Zurich, ETH Zurich, and University of Groningen.

Major Projects and Findings

Major Accelerator projects have addressed topics such as cognitive biases, social decision-making, moral judgment, cooperation, and developmental phenomena, producing findings that often reveal variability across cultures and contexts and challenging assumptions derived from single-lab studies. Notable coordinated studies involved paradigms related to the Ultimatum Game, the Stroop effect, implicit association tasks, and social conformity experiments, with contributions from labs affiliated with London School of Economics, University of Edinburgh, University of Melbourne, University of Hong Kong, and University of Buenos Aires. Results have been disseminated in outlets like Nature Human Behaviour, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, and Psychological Bulletin and have influenced practices at editorial offices such as Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell.

Collaborations and Global Network

The Accelerator's global network includes hundreds of collaborators from over fifty countries, linking regional hubs and partners at institutions such as Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Indian Institute of Science, Universidade de São Paulo, University of Indonesia, and University of Lagos. It partners with consortia and platforms including Center for Open Science, Open Science Framework, and major funding agencies like National Science Foundation and European Commission programs, and engages with professional societies such as American Psychological Association, European Federation of Psychologists' Associations, and International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology to promote standards for reproducible research.

Category:Scientific organizations