Abstract
This article concerns acceptance of the null hypothesis that one variable has no effect on another. Despite frequent opinions to the contrary, this null hypothesis can be correct in some situations. Appropriate criteria for accepting the null hypothesis are (1) that the null hypothesis is possible; (2) that the results are consistent with the null hypothesis; and (3) that the experiment was a good effort to find an effect. These criteria are consistent with the meta-rules for psychology. The good-effort criterion is subjective, which is somewhat undesirable, but the alternative—never accepting the null hypothesis—is neither desirable nor practical.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bakan, D. (1966). The test of significance in psychological research.Psychological Bulletin,66, 423–437.
Bartko, J. J. (1991). Proving the null hypothesis.American Psychologist,46, 1089.
Chow, S. L. (1988). Significance test or effect size?Psychological Bulletin,103, 105–110.
Cohen, J. (1965). Some statistical issues in psychological research. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.),Handbook of clinical psychology (pp. 95–121). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Cohen, J. (1990). Things I have learned (so far).American Psychologist,45, 1304–1312.
Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer.Psychological Bulletin,112, 155–159.
Dawkins, R. (1976).The selfish gene. New York: Oxford University Press.
Eich, E. (1984). Memory for unattended events: Remembering with and without awareness.Memory & Cognition,12, 105–111.
Fisher, R. A. (1966).The design of experiments (8th ed.). Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd.
Fowler, R. L. (1985). Testing for substantive significance in applied research by specifying nonzero effect null hypotheses.Journal of Applied Psychology,70, 215–218.
Goodman, S. N., &Royall, R. (1988). Evidence and scientific research.American Journal of Public Health,78, 1568–1574.
Grant, D. A. (1962). Testing the null hypothesis and the strategy and tactics of investigating theoretical models.Psychological Review,69, 54–61.
Greenwald, A. G. (1975). Consequences of prejudice against the null hypothesis.Psychological Bulletin,82, 1–20.
Harcum, E. T. (1990). Methodological vs. empirical literature: Two views on casual acceptance of the null hypothesis.American Psychologist,45, 404–405.
Kihlstrom, J. F., Schacter, D. L., Cork, R. C., Hurt, C. A., &Behr, S. E. (1990). Implicit and explicit memory following surgical anesthesia.Psychology Science,1, 303–306.
Lindgren, B. W. (1976).Statistical theory (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan.
McNemar, Q. (1960). At random: Sense and nonsense.American Psychologist,15, 295–300.
Meehl, P. E. (1991). Why summaries of research on psychological theories are often uninterpretable. In R. E. Snow & D. E. Wilet (Eds.),Improving inquiry in social science (pp. 13–59). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Murphy, K. R. (1990). If the null hypothesis is impossible, why test it?American Psychologist,45, 403–404.
Aakes, M. (1986).Statistical inference: A commentary for the social and behavioural sciences. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley.
Rogers, J. L., Howard, K. I., &Vessey, J. T. (1993). Using significance tests to evaluate equivalence between two experimental groups.Psychological Bulletin,113, 553–565.
Rosenthal, R. (1979). The “file drawer problem” and tolerance for null results.Psychological Bulletin,86, 638–641.
Serlin, R. C., &Lapsley, D. K. (1985). Rationality in psychological research: The good-enough principle.American Psychologist,40, 73–83.
Weitzman, R. A. (1984). Seven treacherous pitfalls of statistics, illustrated.Psychological Reports,54, 355–363.
Westlake, W. J. (1976). Symmetrical confidence intervals for bioequivalence trials.Biometrics,32, 741–744.
Westlake, W. J. (1979). Statistical aspects of comparative bioavailability trials.Biometrics,35, 273–280.
Wood, J. M., Bootzin, R. R., Kihlstrom, J. F., &Schacter, D. L. (1992). Implicit and explicit memory for verbal information presented during sleep.Psychological Science,3, 236–239.
Yeaton, W. H., &Sechrest, L. (1986). Use and misuse of no-difference findings in eliminating threats to validity.Evaluation Review,10, 836–852.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Frick, R.W. Accepting the null hypothesis. Memory & Cognition 23, 132–138 (1995). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03210562
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03210562