Examining the availability/findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research.

Concerns over the trustworthiness of the research findings generated in Psychology (as well as other disciplines) has led to calls for the adoption of practices that make research more open, transparent, and reproducible. One of these practices is the open sharing of research materials, such as task...

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Main Authors: David Smailes, Arnela Aleksandra, Megan Coakley, Susan Mair, Joe Ventress
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2025-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324514
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author David Smailes
Arnela Aleksandra
Megan Coakley
Susan Mair
Joe Ventress
author_facet David Smailes
Arnela Aleksandra
Megan Coakley
Susan Mair
Joe Ventress
author_sort David Smailes
collection DOAJ
description Concerns over the trustworthiness of the research findings generated in Psychology (as well as other disciplines) has led to calls for the adoption of practices that make research more open, transparent, and reproducible. One of these practices is the open sharing of research materials, such as task stimuli. There is some evidence that, generally, the uptake of this practice has been slow in Psychology. The aim of this study was to examine the availability/findability of the stimuli used in a sample of papers that investigated the effect of exposure to images from social media on participants' body image, as this may be a field where progress in the open sharing of task stimuli may be especially slow. We coded the method sections of 38 studies (published across 36 articles from 2012 to 2021) in terms of the availability/findability of the images they employed and found that in only two articles were we able to fully access task stimuli. We also found no evidence that the sharing of images used as task stimuli had increased over time. We discuss likely reasons for this reticence to share task stimuli in this field, the impact this has on reproducibility, replicability, and research waste, and ways in which this issue can be addressed. All study materials and data are available at doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/wpvst.
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spelling doaj-art-8f5eecdb01ca4d459a3a4b693d0d58ec2025-08-20T03:08:27ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01205e032451410.1371/journal.pone.0324514Examining the availability/findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research.David SmailesArnela AleksandraMegan CoakleySusan MairJoe VentressConcerns over the trustworthiness of the research findings generated in Psychology (as well as other disciplines) has led to calls for the adoption of practices that make research more open, transparent, and reproducible. One of these practices is the open sharing of research materials, such as task stimuli. There is some evidence that, generally, the uptake of this practice has been slow in Psychology. The aim of this study was to examine the availability/findability of the stimuli used in a sample of papers that investigated the effect of exposure to images from social media on participants' body image, as this may be a field where progress in the open sharing of task stimuli may be especially slow. We coded the method sections of 38 studies (published across 36 articles from 2012 to 2021) in terms of the availability/findability of the images they employed and found that in only two articles were we able to fully access task stimuli. We also found no evidence that the sharing of images used as task stimuli had increased over time. We discuss likely reasons for this reticence to share task stimuli in this field, the impact this has on reproducibility, replicability, and research waste, and ways in which this issue can be addressed. All study materials and data are available at doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/wpvst.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324514
spellingShingle David Smailes
Arnela Aleksandra
Megan Coakley
Susan Mair
Joe Ventress
Examining the availability/findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research.
PLoS ONE
title Examining the availability/findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research.
title_full Examining the availability/findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research.
title_fullStr Examining the availability/findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research.
title_full_unstemmed Examining the availability/findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research.
title_short Examining the availability/findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research.
title_sort examining the availability findability of stimuli employed in social media and body image research
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324514
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