Minimizing Mistakes In Psychological Science

Abstract

Developing and implementing best practices in organizing a lab is challenging, especially in the face of new cultural norms such as the open-science movement. Part of this challenge in today's landscape is using new technologies such as cloud storage and computer automation. Here we discuss a few practices designed to increase the reliability of scientific labs by focusing on what technologies and elements minimize common, ordinary mistakes. We borrow principles from the Theory of High-Reliability Organizations which has been used to characterize operational practices in high-risk environments such as aviation and healthcare. From these principles, we focus on five elements: 1. implementing a lab culture focused on learning from mistakes; 2. using computer automation in data and meta-data collection wherever possible; 3. standardizing organization strategies; 4. using coded rather than menu-driven analyses; 5. developing expanded documents that record how analyses were performed.

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