ArticleFrontiers in psychology2014
The need to control for regression to the mean in social psychology studies.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
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- Awareness of Prediabetes Status and Subsequent Health Behavior, Body Weight, and Blood Glucose Levels.Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFMTrial
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- Brain functional connectivity predicts depression and anxiety during childhood and adolescence: A connectome-based predictive modeling approach.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Counting your chickens before they hatch: improvements in an untreated chronic pain population, beyond regression to the mean and the placebo effect.Pain reports · 2024Article
- Understanding Digital Mental Health Needs and Usage With an Artificial Intelligence-Led Mental Health App (Wysa) During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Analysis.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- Enhanced endogenous oxytocin signaling in the brain modulates neural responses to social misalignment and promotes conformity in humans: A multi-locus genetic profile approach.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Management of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting-Related Obstetric Complications: A Training Evaluation.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- The Updated NICE Guidance Exposed the Serious Flaws in CBT and Graded Exercise Therapy Trials for ME/CFS.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Understanding People With Chronic Pain Who Use a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-Based Artificial Intelligence Mental Health App (Wysa): Mixed Methods Retrospective Observational Study.JMIR human factors · 2022Article
- Autonomic function predicts cognitive decline in mild cognitive impairment: Evidence from power spectral analysis of heart rate variability in a longitudinal study.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Article
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- Could Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Be an Effective Treatment for Long COVID and Post COVID-19 Fatigue Syndrome? Lessons from the Qure Study for Q-Fever Fatigue Syndrome.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Association of Transient Endothelial Dysfunction Induced by Mental Stress With Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events in Men and Women With Coronary Artery Disease.JAMA cardiology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It is common in repeated measurements for extreme values at the first measurement to approach the mean at the subsequent measurement, a phenomenon called regression to the mean (RTM). If RTM is not fully controlled, it will lead to erroneous conclusions. The wide use of repeated measurements in social psychology creates a risk that an RTM effect will influence results. However, insufficient attention is paid to RTM in most social psychological research. Notable cases include studies on the phenomena of social conformity and unrealistic optimism (Klucharev et al., 2009, 2011; Sharot et al., 2011, 2012b; Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2012; Garrett and Sharot, 2014). In Study 1, 13 university students rated and re-rated the facial attractiveness of a series of female faces as a test of the social conformity effect (Klucharev et al., 2009). In Study 2, 15 university students estimated and re-estimated their risk of experiencing a series of adverse life events as a test of the unrealistic optimism effect (Sharot et al., 2011). Although these studies used methodologies similar to those used in earlier research, the social conformity and unrealistic optimism effects were no longer evident after controlling for RTM. Based on these findings we suggest several ways to control for the RTM effect in social psychology studies, such as adding the initial rating as a covariate in regression analysis, selecting a subset of stimuli for which the participant' initial ratings were matched across experimental conditions, and using a control group.
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