South African Psychiatry - November 2018

CULINARY CORNER
More to the point, from a theoretical point of view, in
1925 Freud published an elaboration of his original
theory of penis envy. In his view, the moment at which
a girl discovers her lack of a penis is a moment of
immense psychic trauma. From that moment on, the
girl will want a penis and as she matures, will hope
for second best: her father’s penis. As incest is taboo,
this will inspire feelings of shame in her and she will
ultimately sublimate her desire for her father’s penis
into a desire for a child.
As Coffey (2017) notes, Freud’s theory of penis envy
may be less based on observable phenomena
in girls and young women in general, than on his
daughter’s specific issues.
MAIN MEAL
DATA THUGS
applications. They may process survey results through
a computer application known as SPRITE (Sample
Parameter Reconstruction via Interactive Technique).
This can be used to determine whether survey results
on paper appear to have been fabricated. They
also have the aptly named GRIM, which stands for
Granularity-Related Inconsistency of Means. This
program tests to see whether certain figures reported
in an article are mathematically possible. If they’re
not, then the authors either miscalculated or they
made it up (Bartlett, 2018).
In his essay, “I Want to Burn Things to the Ground”
Bartlett (2018) notes that the problem is exacerbated
by the unwillingness of researchers to share their
data freely (often to protect the anonymity of
respondents).
UNFORTUNATELY, CONCEALING DATA
MAKES IT EASIER TO FUDGE WHAT IS
FOUND. RESEARCHERS OFTEN DO
NOT STATE WHAT THEY ARE TRYING
TO DISCOVER BEFORE THEY ATTEMPT
TO DISCOVER IT. THE FREEDOM TO
ALTER HYPOTHESES THEN FACILITATES
P-HACKING - WHICH REFERS TO WHEN
A RESEARCHER GOES SEARCHING FOR
PATTERNS IN STATISTICAL NOISE.
REPORTING P-VALUES
It gets worse - or better. In the early 2010s a computer
program known as Statcheck was developed by
psychologists at the University of Amsterdam. This
program is used to detect instances in reported
research where the p-value does not correspond to
the value of the reported statistic, whether this be x²,
F, r, t or z.
Social psychology studies have been going through
something of a crisis related to high levels of poor
replication. To add to this growing sense of insecurity,
a group of research investigators consisting of
freelance scientists and fringe academics have
sprung up. They make it their business to challenge
the statistical findings in published research.
These individuals belong to a body called the Society
for the Improvement of Psychological Science and
are often portrayed as “data thugs”. While they are
to be welcomed on the one hand for contributing
to discussions regarding the quality of data, their
dissection of studies are also stifling new research
projects as potential researchers experience
growing fear that their findings may not withstand
their withering scrutiny (Bartlett, 2018).
“Data thugs” are able to contribute to their researchassaulting
activities by means of computer
USING STATCHECK, CANADIAN
RESEARCHERS, GREEN ET AL (2018),
SURVEYED ARTICLES IN SEVERAL
PRESTIGIOUS EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN
PSYCHOLOGY JOURNALS. THEY FOUND
THAT THERE WAS A HIGH LEVEL OF
INCOHERENCE BETWEEN THE P-VALUE
AND THE RELEVANT TEST STATISTICS IN
THE RESEARCH INVESTIGATED. NEARLY
HALF OF ALL THE PAPERS CONTAINED
AT LEAST ONE SUCH ERROR, AS DID 10%
OF ALL NULL HYPOTHESIS SIGNIFICANCE
TESTS.
The researchers then turned their attention to
Canadian journals and discovered similar rates of
p-value errors. The authors recommend that in the
future, journals include explicit checks of statistics in
their editorial process.
60 * SOUTH AFRICAN PSYCHIATRY ISSUE 17 2018