ArticlePloS one2023
Self-selection biases in psychological studies: Personality and affective disorders are prevalent among participants.
Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- Non-pharmacological treatment of anxiety in general practice: a scoping review.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2026Article
- Characteristics of participants and nonparticipants in a population based diagnostic survey of mental and substance use disorders. A follow-up study of the Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT).Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Development of a web-based resource for parents to support youth mental health: An exploratory sequential mixed methods approach.Internet interventions · 2026Article
- Childhood Maltreatment and Psychopathology: The Mediating Roles of Mentalizing and Attachment Styles.Psychopathology · 2026Article
- Is simulation always a safe learning environment? Anxiety and social anxiety symptoms in first-year medical students during simulated patient encounters.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Knowledge tests on adolescent depression and anxiety: a measure for adults in the Chilean school system.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Changes in dietary habits and mental well-being among university students following an educational intervention: pilot study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Mental Health Symptom Screening Among Adult Emergency Department Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open · 2026Article
- How to promote therapy-seeking for men with binge-spectrum eating disorders: a qualitative study.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Food Insecurity in Individuals with Eating Disorders: A UK-Wide Survey of Impact, Help-Seeking, and Suggestions for Guidance.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Identifying psychological distress data available in nationally representative surveys: A scoping review and case study of Australian surveys.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Review
- Hidden struggles: professional Norwegian actors' experiences with performance anxiety and its consequences in their daily work.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of resilience-based interventions to promote mental well-being among secondary school children: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- "That Came Back to Haunt Me": Violence Against Women Survivors' Concerns About Police Use of Body-Worn Cameras.Journal of interpersonal violence · 2026Article
- The Contribution of Yoga to the Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Social Reintegration of Incarcerated Individuals: A Systematic Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Adults with more severe psychopathy in the community show increased social discounting.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Benefits, Challenges, and Opportunities of LCME Accreditation: A National Survey.Medical science educator · 2025Article
- Effective Recruitment or Bot Attack? The Challenge of Internet-Based Research Surveys and Recommendations to Reduce Risk and Improve Robustness.Interactive journal of medical research · 2025Article
- Bias recognition and mitigation strategies in artificial intelligence healthcare applications.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Review
- A Screening Measure of Emotion Regulation Difficulties: Polish Norms and Psychometrics of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-8 (DERS-8).Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Respondents select the type of psychological studies that they want to participate in consistence with their needs and individual characteristics, which creates an unintentional self-selection bias. The question remains whether participants attracted by psychological studies may have more psychological dysfunctions related to personality and affective disorders compared to the general population. We investigated (N = 947; 62% women) whether the type of the invitation (to talk about recent critical or regular life events) or the source of the data (either face-to-face or online) attracts people with different psychopathology. Most importantly, participants who alone applied to take part in paid psychological studies had more symptoms of personality disorders than those who had never before applied to take part in psychological studies. The current results strongly translate into a recommendation for either the modification of recruitment strategies or much greater caution when generalizing results for this methodological reason.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.