Like performance enhancing drugs inflating apparent athletic achievements, several common social science practices contribute to the production of illusory results. In this article, we examine the processes that lead to illusory findings and describe their consequences. Borrowing from an...

College success requires students to engage with their institution academically and administratively. Missteps with administrative processes can threaten student persistence and success. Through two experimental studies, one exploratory (N=13,657) and one pre-registered and confirmatory...

Deep reinforcement learning using convolutional neural networks is the technology behind autonomous vehicles. Could this same technology facilitate the road to college? During the summer between high school and college, college-related tasks that students must navigate can hinder successful...

This article presents a new perspective on ‘timeliness' through developing novel hypotheses and methodologies to explain behavioural and structural determinants of civil case disposition time. Our proposed more comprehensive methodology presents a powerful explanatory tool to inform future...

How accurate are responses to questions about intentions to vote in an upcoming election? Questions of this type are studied in a range of work in political science to understand the effects of other factors on political engagement, as well as in public opinion research. We analyze six phone...

Phone calls encouraging citizens to vote are staples of modern campaigns. Insights from psychological science can make these calls dramatically more potent while also generating opportunities to expand psychological theory. We present a field experiment conducted during the 2008 presidential...

The fact that many citizens fail to vote is often cited to motivate others to vote. Psychological research on descriptive social norms suggests that emphasizing the opposite – that many do vote – would be a more effective message. In two get-out-the-vote field experiments, we find that...

Although observers of human behavior have long been aware that people regularly struggle with internal conflict when deciding whether to behave responsibly or indulge in impulsivity, psychologists and economists did not begin to empirically investigate this type of want/should conflict until...