Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T07:53:10.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reducing Political Bias in Political Science Estimates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2017

L. J. Zigerell
L. J. Zigerell*
Affiliation:
Illinois State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Political science researchers have flexibility in how to analyze data, how to report data, and whether to report on data. A review of examples of reporting flexibility from the race and sex discrimination literature illustrates how research design choices can influence estimates and inferences. This reporting flexibility—coupled with the political imbalance among political scientists—creates the potential for political bias in reported political science estimates. These biases can be reduced or eliminated through preregistration and preacceptance, with researchers committing to a research design before completing data collection. Removing the potential for reporting flexibility can raise the credibility of political science research.

Type
Controversy: Bias in Political Science Estimates
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 179 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agiesta, Jennifer and Ross, Sonya. 2012. “AP Poll: Majority Harbor Prejudice against Blacks.” Associated Press, October 27. http://news.yahoo.com/ap-poll-majority-harbor-prejudice-against-blacks-073551680–election.html.Google Scholar
Baker, Andy. 2012. Replication data for: “Race, Paternalism, and Foreign Aid: Evidence from US Public Opinion.” http://spot.colorado.edu/∼bakerab/data.html.Google Scholar
Baker, Andy. 2015. “Race, Paternalism, and Foreign Aid: Evidence from US Public Opinion.” American Political Science Review 109 (1): 93–109.Google Scholar
Banks, Antoine J. 2010. Replication data for: “The Public’s Anger: White Racial Attitudes and Opinions toward Health Care Reform.” http://www.tessexperiments.org/data/banks019.html.Google Scholar
Banks, Antoine J. 2014. “The Public’s Anger: White Racial Attitudes and Opinions toward Health Care Reform.” Political Behavior 36 (3): 493–514.Google Scholar
Bashir, Omar S. 2015. “Testing Inferences about American Politics: A Review of the ‘Oligarchy’ Result.” Research & Politics 2 (4). doi: 10.1177/2053168015608896.Google Scholar
Benard, Stephen W. 2005. Reproduction data for: “Statistical Discrimination, Stereotyping, and Evaluations of Worker Productivity.” http://www.tessexperiments.org/data/benard241.html.Google Scholar
Broockman, David, Kalla, Joshua, and Aronow, Peter. 2015. “Irregularities in LaCour (2014).” http://web.stanford.edu/∼dbroock/broockman_kalla_aronow_lg_irregularities.pdf.Google Scholar
DA-RT. 2015. “The Journal Editors’ Transparency Statement (JETS).” http://www.dartstatement.org/#!blank/c22sl.Google Scholar
Duarte, José L., Crawford, Jarret T., Stern, Charlotta, Haidt, Jonathan, Jussim, Lee, and Tetlock, Philip E.. 2015. “Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 38: e130.Google Scholar
Findley, Michael G., Jensen, Nathan M., Malesky, Edmund J., and Pepinsky, Thomas B.. 2016. “Can Results-Free Review Reduce Publication Bias? The Results and Implications of a Pilot Study.” Comparative Political Studies doi: 10.1177/0010414016655539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franco, Annie, Malhotra, Neil, and Simonovits, Gabor. 2014. “Publication Bias in the Social Sciences: Unlocking the File Drawer.” Science 345 (6203): 1502–05.Google Scholar
Franco, Annie, Malhotra, Neil, and Simonovits, Gabor. 2015. “Underreporting in Political Science Survey Experiments: Comparing Questionnaires to Published Results.” Political Analysis 23 (2): 306–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franco, Annie, Malhotra, Neil, and Simonovits, Gabor. 2016. “Underreporting in Psychology Experiments: Evidence from a Study Registry.” Social Psychological and Personality Science 7 (1): 8–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herndon, Thomas, Ash, Michael, and Pollin, Robert. 2014. “Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 38 (2): 257–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchings, Vincent L., Walton, Hanes, and Benjamin, Andrea. 2010. “The Impact of Explicit Racial Cues on Gender Differences in Support for Confederate Symbols and Partisanship.” Journal of Politics 72 (4): 1175–88.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Robert M. and Irvin, Veronica L.. 2015. “Likelihood of Null Effects of Large NHLBI Clinical Trials Has Increased Over Time.” PloS ONE 10 (8): e0132382.Google Scholar
Klein, Daniel B. and Stern, Charlotta. 2005. “Professors and Their Politics: The Policy Views of Social Scientists.” Critical Review 17 (3–4): 257–303.Google Scholar
Krupnikov, Yanna. 2012. Replication data for: “Accentuating the Negative: Candidate Race and Campaign Strategy.” http://www.tessexperiments.org/data/krupnikov245.html.Google Scholar
Krupnikov, Yanna and Piston, Spencer. 2015. “Accentuating the Negative: Candidate Race and Campaign Strategy.” Political Communication 32 (1): 152–73.Google Scholar
LaCour, Michael J. and Green, Donald P.. 2014. “When Contact Changes Minds: An Experiment on Transmission of Support for Gay Equality.” Science 346 (6215): 1366–1369.Google Scholar
Maliniak, Daniel, Powers, Ryan, and Walter, Barbara F.. 2013. “The Gender Citation Gap in International Relations.” International Organization 67 (4): 889–922.Google Scholar
Monogan, James E. III. 2010. “The Immigration Issue and the 2010 House Elections: A Research Design.” Political Science Registered Studies Dataverse at the University of Georgia, November 1. http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/16470.Google Scholar
Monogan, James E. III. 2013. “A Case for Registering Studies of Political Outcomes: An Application in the 2010 House Elections.” Political Analysis 21 (1): 21–37.Google Scholar
Monogan, James E. III. 2015. “Research Preregistration in Political Science: The Case, Counterarguments, and a Response to Critiques.” PS: Political Science & Politics 48 (3): 425–29.Google Scholar
Moore, David W. 2012. “What the AP Poll on Racial Attitudes Really Tells Us, Part 1.” iMediaEthics, Nov. 2. http://www.imediaethics.org/News/3555/What_the_ap_poll_on_racial_attitudes_really_tells_us__part_1_.php.Google Scholar
Nyhan, Brendan. 2015. “Increasing the Credibility of Political Science Research: A Proposal for Journal Reforms.” PS: Political Science & Politics 48 (SI): 78–83.Google Scholar
Open Science Collaboration. 2015. “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science.” Science 349 (6251): aac4716.Google Scholar
Pasek, Josh, Krosnick, Jon A., and Tompson, Trevor. 2012. “The Impact of Anti-Black Racism on Approval of Barack Obama’s Job Performance and on Voting in the 2012 Presidential Election.” Unpublished report. http://joshpasek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2012-Voting-and-Racism.pdf.Google Scholar
Rattan, Aneeta, Levine, Cynthia S., Dweck, Carol S., and Eberhardt, Jennifer L.. 2010. Replication data for: “Race and the Fragility of the Legal Distinction between Juveniles and Adults.” http://www.tessexperiments.org/data/eberhardt033.html.Google Scholar
Rattan, Aneeta, Levine, Cynthia S., Dweck, Carol S., and Eberhardt, Jennifer L.. 2012. “Race and the Fragility of the Legal Distinction between Juveniles and Adults.” PloS One 7 (5): e36680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothman, Stanley, Robert Lichter, S., and Nevitte, Neil. 2005. “Politics and Professional Advancement among College Faculty.” The Forum 3 (1), article 2.Google Scholar
Sides, John. 2013. “Why Study Social Science.” The Monkey Cage, February 5. http://themonkeycage.org/2013/02/why-study-social-science.Google Scholar
Simmons, Joseph P., Nelson, Leif D., and Simonsohn, Uri. 2011. “False-Positive Psychology Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant.” Psychological Science 22 (11): 1359–66.Google Scholar
Singal, Jesse. 2015. “The Case of the Amazing Gay-Marriage Data: How a Graduate Student Reluctantly Uncovered a Huge Scientific Fraud.” New York Magazine, May 29. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/05/how-a-grad-student-uncovered-a-huge-fraud.html.Google Scholar
Zigerell, L. J. 2015a. “Inferential Selection Bias in a Study of Racial Bias: Revisiting ‘Working Twice as Hard to Get Half as Far.’” Research & Politics 2 (1). doi: 10.1177/2053168015570996.Google Scholar
Zigerell, L. J. 2015b. “Is the Gender Citation Gap in International Relations Driven by Elite Papers?” Research & Politics 2 (2). doi: 10.1177/2053168015585192.Google Scholar
Zigerell, L. J. 2016. “The Public’s Fear: Revisiting the Emotional Influences on White Racial Attitudes about Health Care Reform.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar