Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: How Psychology Students Can Evaluate and Increase the Replicability of their Research
Dr. John Sakaluk, PhD Department of Psychology, University of Victoria Large-scale collaborative investigations have called the replicability of psychological research into question. Advances in methods of evaluating replicability and producing replicable research are occurring at a dizzying pace. What are young professionals and continuing students to do, in their own research, with our field at such a major crossroad? In the present talk, I will briefly review some of the major pieces of evidence that psychology—across sub-fields—does, in fact, appear to have a replicability problem. I will then detail some of the ways that continuing psychology students can evaluate and improve the replicability of their own research moving forward, including demonstrations of easy-to-use online tools and open source software that help to quantify replicability and increase research transparency. As a result, attending students should be able to immediately begin increasing the confidence others can have in the scientific findings they produce. Keywords:open science; replicability; research methods; statistics
Empathy and emotional regulation in re-integrated Colombian ex-combatants: the effects of 50 years of internal warfare
Dr. Mauricio Garcia-Barrera, PhD Department of Psychology, University of Victoria The Republic of Colombia has a long-standing history of internal armed conflict, further complicated by the ideological assumptions underlying their war. In recent years, its government designed the Program for Reincorporation to Civilian Life (Programa para la Reincorporación a la Vida Civil, PRVC), aiming demobilization of thousands of insurgents who were involved in guerilla and paramilitary forces. One PRVC goal involves the psychological characterization of its reincorporated members, aiming the informed design of effective and efficacious interventions to improve their adjustment. Dr. Garcia-Barrera, trained as a clinical neuropsychologist, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, who has been a member of a group of researchers in Colombia (Grupo de Neurociencias de Antioquia) studying empathy and emotional processing on hundreds of ex-combatants that are part of the PRVC program. He will be discussing briefly the war history and current resolutions, to give a context to his research, and then he will extend his discussion to presenting in more detail, the teamwork research effort in examining empathy in this unique sample, their recent findings and future directions.