What does your heart and intuition tell you?

The measure of natural ability of black and white participants is 23 and 27 respectively. The measure of sports intelligence of black and white participants is 27 and 23 respectively. All values are estimated. These examples illustrate that if we are really to have confidence in the external validity of the findings of psychological research, the research needs to be replicated with other types of operationalizations and other participants from varying cultures, geographic regions, and socioeconomic levels. Social psychological research has been criticized for its heavy use of college students as research participants and for participants who might be described as WEIRD (that is, from countries that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic [Henrich et al. This is not surprising because most of the research has been conducted by scientists who are themselves WEIRD. However, some have wondered whether we are simply piling up knowledge about the middle class in WEIRD nations but are learning little about other North Americans, Europeans, and Australians, let alone people from other continents. This narrow choice of participants is a problem because if culture does exert a powerful role in shaping our view of ourselves and the world around us, then building a science of human behavior largely drawn from only a limited slice of human diversity is likely to skew the conclusions we draw. Sit down on your couch in a slumped posture, let your shoulders hang down, and concurrently arch your back. Look indifferently at the floor, fold your forehead and bring one hand to your forehead. Now try to get out of this posture into a euphoric mood, up to ecstasy. Did you manage that? Certainly not! That can't succeed either. Now try to perform the first exercise in reverse. You will be in a good mood, even if something was bothering you before. In the second exercise you will feel depressed, even if you were in a good mood before. It is astonishing how one's posture affects the inside. If you're someone who has a busy mind (who doesn't? Too often we get bombarded with self-defeating thoughts when we first try to meditate.

The goal is to make the practice of meditation a welcomed event, not a chore to be avoided. Guided relaxation tapes help lead your mind into a relaxed state by using the comfort of a soothing voice. As you teach your mind to listen, it quickly learns to follow your lead. You'll find resources for tapes and CDs at the end of this article. Take Action! Learn to Be Still To help you get comfortable with the practice of going inside, I'd like to offer you a simple exercise. The following meditation is designed to build your inner focus muscles. The ideal solution to this problem would be to sample people randomly from the entire population of the earth. Of course, such random sampling is never possible. Although the rare cross-national survey study might be able to recruit samples that are broadly representative of people from diverse racial, ethnic, national, geographic, and economic constituencies, they are still not representative of people they cannot reach or those who are unwilling to fill out the survey. Most studies that take place in laboratories are forced to rely on samples of convenience -- typically college students much like yourself. Fortunately, more and more research is being done around the globe to replicate findings in new cultural contexts. Although these true tests of generalizability will sometimes confirm the universal nature of phenomena, they might also reveal important cultural differences in how we think and feel about ourselves and others. Throughout this text, we highlight some of the research that has already revealed such interesting cultural variations. Social psychology studies rely heavily on readily available college student samples. But how can we know if findings from such studies can be generalized? Can the Findings Be Replicated? The same happens with the inner attitude, which influences your posture and is a mirror image. You are the one who always has the decision in your hand.

If you feel depressed and oppressed inside, you can adopt a taut posture on the outside and thus create a so-called body anchor. In this way you create a positive effect on your inner self. You can counteract dejection from within right from the start by paying attention to the posture of your body every day. Counteract the fatigue Similar to the first point, create your state with neurolinguistic programming. For example, if you are attending an event and you feel fatigued, you can counteract this by simply speaking louder. Adopt a taut posture, breathe consciously, and take in more oxygen. This will help you feel fresher. Rather than offer you a script to follow, I'd like to give you something you can use anytime, anywhere--a process of recall. To do this, sit comfortably in a chair, or lie on the floor with your knees bent. Focus on your breath in a way that feels comfortable to you. Don't worry about breathing the right way. Trust yourself to know what you need in order to feel relaxed. When you're ready, follow this three-step process: Take several breaths and let yourself relax. Spend five minutes recalling a favorite memory in detail. For example, you might replay your wedding day in your mind's eye, see yourself playing softball with a group of friends during a summer picnic, or watch your son or daughter take his or her first step. As you recall these events, allow yourself to see, hear, feel, and smell the whole scene in vivid detail. A hallmark of the scientific process is not simply to identify interesting and important effects but to show that those effects can be repeated by direct replication using exactly the same methods and measures used by the original researchers. In recent years, there has been growing interest in establishing the replicability of scientific findings, sparked by several high-profile examples where findings could not be replicated.

For example, when a large network of psychologists tried to replicate 100 experiments that had been published in top scientific journals, fewer than half of the original effects replicated (Open Science Collaboration et al. The challenge of replicating results is not unique to psychology. In a 2016 survey, more than 50% of chemists, biologists, physicists, medical scientists, and engineers all reported having at some point failed to replicate someone else's as well as their own results (Baker, 2016). Direct replication The process of reproducing a scientific finding by repeating the same methods and measures used in the original research study. Reports like these can lead to a crisis of confidence in science, but they have had the benefit of spurring researchers to reexamine and adjust scientific practices to increase the replicability of effects. Social psychologists have been at the forefront of these efforts (Asendorpf et al. Finkel et al. Use a refreshing, interesting topic of conversation, which can release energy. These actions will transfer to your inner being all by themselves and in a few minutes you will have overcome a touch of tiredness. Pacing: mirror your conversation partner The topic has already been mentioned and described several times. Pacing is one of the best-known techniques from neurolinguistic programming. You mirror your conversation partner during the common communication. Pacing can include the following points: You adapt your gestures and body movements to those of your conversation partner. At the same moment you blink your eyes, like the person you are talking to. They take the same leg position as you opposite and cross their legs. When you're finished, go on to step three. Take a few deep breaths and return to your body.

The idea behind this exercise is to teach you to control your thoughts while sitting still. You can vary the second step in a number of ways. For example, you might imagine yourself doing something you love to do, like painting, swimming, or running through your favorite park. As you do this exercise be sure to allow your mind to relive this experience in full detail. How did you feel? What did you see? What did you hear? Bask in the joy of remembering this event. Findings from a study are more likely to be reproduced when the sample is large, the manipulation is strong, and the measures are reliable. Social psychologists now routinely use a statistical technique called power analysis to determine the size of the sample needed to make it highly likely that a study's results can be replicated. Even when researchers follow these methodological best practices, social psychology's emphasis on how situations affect thought and behavior can make it difficult to replicate findings across different samples, cultures, locations, and time (van Bavel et al. This is where the cycle of science can be important for identifying important moderator variables that theoretically explain when, where, or for whom effects are most likely to occur. For example, stereotype threat only impairs performance of minority students who are personally invested in doing well academically (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008). One important lesson to learn is that the process of science is always ongoing. Studies that do not replicate today can help researchers refine both theory and methods going forward. Moderator variables Variables that explain when, where, or for whom an effect is most likely to occur. Another important point to remember is that scientific progress is made in the aggregate. The voice pitch is adjusted to that of the caller. The sitting posture and breathing are adjusted.