ABSTRACT

In a standard college dictionary (Webster’s New World, College Edition, 1960), null is defined as “invalid; amounting to nought; of no value, effect, or consequence; insignificant.” In statistical hypothesis testing, the null hypothesis most often refers to the hypothesis of no difference between treatment effects or of no association between variables. Interestingly, in the behavioral sciences, researchers’ null hypotheses frequently satisfy the nonstatistical definition of null, being “of no value,” “insignificant,” and presumably “invalid.” My aims here are to document this state of affairs, to examine its consequences for the archival accumulation of scientific knowledge, and lastly, to make a positive case for the formulation of more potent and acceptable null hypotheses as a part of an overall research strategy.