If You Ignore Manipulation Errors in Your Experiments You Might Be P-Hacking Without Knowing.

23 Pages Posted: 17 Jul 2019

Date Written: July 11, 2019

Abstract

This research brief is a cautionary note on the dangers of using p-values as empirical evidence for crossover effects in consumer research. If you rely on experimental manipulation to produce between-subjects variation on a moderator construct, and then test for interaction effects on the manipulation (rather than the moderator construct), your evidence of a crossover effect might be based on spurious statistical significance. The main purpose here is to alert experimenters about ignoring manipulation errors, rather than proposing specific solutions (even though I briefly review the literature proposing methods to ameliorate the situation).

Keywords: Crossover effects, Consumer Psychology, Consumer Behavior

JEL Classification: M3, C9, C91, C93

Suggested Citation

Kamakura, Wagner A., If You Ignore Manipulation Errors in Your Experiments You Might Be P-Hacking Without Knowing. (July 11, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3421032 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3421032

Wagner A. Kamakura (Contact Author)

Rice University ( email )

6100 South Main Street
P.O. Box 1892
Houston, TX 77005-1892
United States
(713) 348-6307 (Phone)

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