Replication of Thinking about a limited future enhances the positivity of younger and older adults’ recall: Support for socioemotional selectivity theory by Barber, Opitz, Martins, Sakaki & Mather (2016, Memory & Cognition)
Introduction
I would like to attempt to replicate Experiment 2 in the article, “Thinking about a limited future enhances the positivity of younger and older adults’ recall: Support for socioemotional selectivity theory.” In this experiment, the authors found that people who were assigned to write and reflect on a limited future subsequently recalled more positive images compared to people who were assigned to write and reflect on either expansive futures or time-neutral prompt and that this difference was independent of mood. I chose this experiment because I am interested in age differences in emotional experience and whether we can learn from the emotional strengths of older adulthood to design interventions to improve the emotional well-being of younger adults, who suffer disproportionately from mental distress.
To conduct this replication, 150 participants from an online sampling platform will be required, in alignment with the original study. To minimize context sensitivity, the procedures of the replication study will resemble those of the original study as much as possible.
After recruitment, participants will complete the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. Then, participants will be divided randomly into three conditions. In the Limited Time Horizon condition, participants respond to four questions about how they would act if they had 6 months left to live. In the Expansive Time Horizon condition, participants will write responses to four questions about how they would behave if they knew they would live to 120 years of age. Finally, in the control condition, participants write about what they do on a normal day. The exact wording of these materials are available in the appendices of the manuscript of the original study. After the writing activity, participants report their mood on a sliding scale from 0-100. Next, participants complete an emotional picture memory task. This original study used images from the International Affective Picture System and noted the picture numbers in the manuscript. The IAPS images are available for access in my lab so I will use the same images. An issue is that the manuscript indicates that seven negative images were used and seven positive images were used, but the notes in the manuscript only identify six image numbers for negative stimuli. To have equal positive and negative images, I will either have to omit a positive image or add another negative image of equal arousal. The original article also indicates that participants view four neutral images, but do not specify which ones, so I will have to choose four neutral images that may differ from those in the original study. After viewing the images, which are displayed for 5 seconds each in a slideshow, participants will be prompted to type short descriptions of as many of the pictures as they can recall. After the recall task, participants provide demographic information and the study concludes. Two raters will score the responses to the recall task to code whether each image was recalled.
The repository for this project can be found here.
The original paper can be found here.
Methods
Power Analysis
Original effect size, power analysis for samples to achieve 80%, 90%, 95% power to detect that effect size. Considerations of feasibility for selecting planned sample size.
Planned Sample
Planned sample size and/or termination rule, sampling frame, known demographics if any, preselection rules if any.
Materials
All materials - can quote directly from original article - just put the text in quotations and note that this was followed precisely. Or, quote directly and just point out exceptions to what was described in the original article.
Procedure
Can quote directly from original article - just put the text in quotations and note that this was followed precisely. Or, quote directly and just point out exceptions to what was described in the original article.
Analysis Plan
Can also quote directly, though it is less often spelled out effectively for an analysis strategy section. The key is to report an analysis strategy that is as close to the original - data cleaning rules, data exclusion rules, covariates, etc. - as possible.
Clarify key analysis of interest here You can also pre-specify additional analyses you plan to do.
Differences from Original Study
Explicitly describe known differences in sample, setting, procedure, and analysis plan from original study. The goal, of course, is to minimize those differences, but differences will inevitably occur. Also, note whether such differences are anticipated to make a difference based on claims in the original article or subsequent published research on the conditions for obtaining the effect.
Methods Addendum (Post Data Collection)
You can comment this section out prior to final report with data collection.
Actual Sample
Sample size, demographics, data exclusions based on rules spelled out in analysis plan
Differences from pre-data collection methods plan
Any differences from what was described as the original plan, or “none”.
Results
Data preparation
Data preparation following the analysis plan.
Confirmatory analysis
The analyses as specified in the analysis plan.
Side-by-side graph with original graph is ideal here
Exploratory analyses
Any follow-up analyses desired (not required).
Discussion
Summary of Replication Attempt
Open the discussion section with a paragraph summarizing the primary result from the confirmatory analysis and the assessment of whether it replicated, partially replicated, or failed to replicate the original result.
Commentary
Add open-ended commentary (if any) reflecting (a) insights from follow-up exploratory analysis, (b) assessment of the meaning of the replication (or not) - e.g., for a failure to replicate, are the differences between original and present study ones that definitely, plausibly, or are unlikely to have been moderators of the result, and (c) discussion of any objections or challenges raised by the current and original authors about the replication attempt. None of these need to be long.