It’s always a bummer when an experiment fails to reject the hull hypothesis. Fortunately I have pretty thick skin. Before my colleague and I eventually found the right stimuli we created plenty of wrong stuff. Feeling especially clever one day, I thought I would prove an interaction (with just the right framing conditions) using nearly identical manipulations:

I thought the presence of two sets of hands (instead of one) would be enough to induce people to think about their relationship with others. Whoops, I was wrong. But being wrong can help steer you toward what is right. Once the full study is published I’ll post the rest of the failed stimuli here…. I think research should be honest, and that it can be enlightening even (and especially) when it stumbles at first. -insert Edison quote on 10000 ways a lightbulb doesn’t work here-