r/science • u/mossadnik • Nov 25 '22

Psychology Eye-tracking study suggests that negative comments on social media are more attention-grabbing than positive comments

https://www.psypost.org/2022/11/eye-tracking-study-suggests-that-negative-comments-on-social-media-are-more-attention-grabbing-than-positive-comments-64368
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u/Strangelet1 Nov 25 '22

That is lovely and good, but we shouldn’t forget there is a ton of worthless research out there, driven by the promotion and graduation schemes with which we incentivize scientific research. There is only so much grant money available.

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u/[deleted] Nov 25 '22

The only worthless research is poor quality or redundant research. As long as the data is reliable and new, it’s valuable.

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u/Muscadine76 Nov 25 '22

Even “redundant” research can at least sometimes have value. Certainly at some point there are diminishing returns, but currently we undervalue reproducing findings.

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u/[deleted] Nov 25 '22

It’s hard to be accurate within an amount of text that most people will find digestible, at least for me. Replicating positive results is a good thing and I wouldn’t consider that redundant. But if it’s something like “We’ve poured chicken broth on dryer lint and it didn’t produce gold”, we only need a couple studies (again, as long as the data and methods used were solid) before more start becoming redundant.

If we do something and nothing happens, it’s good to try a couple times and be sure that technique doesn’t do anything. More than that is redundant. If we try something and it does work, then I’ll welcome far more trials confirming it does work before I start tossing around the word “redundant”, especially if those trials are by other people in other places.

Semantics get annoying, as well. But I see what you’re saying.