Learning a research outcome in class or the media may bias people towards that outcome (hindsight bias), and receiving an explanation may accentuate bias (explanation bias), both of which could hinder understanding of the necessity of replication. We tested whether providing outcomes and explanations of research findings increased difficulty of explaining alternative outcomes, and, if so, whether people were less surprised by the presented findings, and found them more likely to replicate. Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) workers and introductory psychology students were randomly assigned to do one of the following: 1. Read details of four psychological studies without their outcomes, 2. additionally receive the outcomes, 3. additionally receive explanations of outcomes. We did not find reliable effects on difficulty of explaining alternative outcomes, and found little evidence for hindsight or explanation biases. We speculate that explaining alternative outcomes immediately after considering the actual outcomes may have debiased our participants.

When we read research findings, what facilitates consideration of different possible outcomes? 112 Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers read about four psychological studies, and either predicted the results, received the results without explanation, or received the results with a plausible explanation. We hypothesized that 1. receiving results would increase the difficulty of explaining alternative outcomes, and that this would be amplified by receiving explanations, 2. As difficulty explaining alternatives increases, participants would be less surprised by actual results and predict higher likelihood of replication. We did not find the expected differences in difficulty across conditions. However, across all four research studies, surprise was negatively correlated with likelihood of replication, indicating that more surprising results are considered less likely to replicate. We consider reasons why our manipulation did not affect difficulty of explaining alternative outcomes, and discuss implications for how research can best be presented to promote consideration of alternative outcomes.