Do not use the personality items included in the World Values Survey. That is the recommendation of Steven Ludeke and Erik Gahner Larsen in a recent paper published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences . The journal is owned by Elsevier so the official publication is paywalled. Still I am writing about it because the message of the paper is extremely important.

1. No Laws All we have is probabilities. 2. All Experts The knowledge we have is continuously contested. The objects of study think they know why they do what they do. 3. Zillions of Variables Everything is connected, and potentially a cause – like a bowl of well-tossed spaghetti. 4. Many Levels of Action Nations, organizations, networks, individuals, time all have different dynamics.

pdf of this post Experiments can have important advantages above other research designs. The most important advantage of experiments concerns internal validity. Random assignment to treatment reduces the attribution problem and increases the possibilities for causal inference. An additional advantage is that control over participants reduces heterogeneity of treatment effects observed.

How to find truth in an ocean of correlations – with breakers, still waters, tidal waves, and undercurrents? In the old age of responsible research and publication, we would collect estimates reported in previous research, and compute a correlation across correlations in a meta-analysis. Those days are long gone.

De werkgroep Filantropische Studies van de Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is het expertisecentrum op het gebied van onderzoek naar filantropie in Nederland. De werkgroep houdt zich bezig met vragen zoals: Waarom geven mensen vrijwillig geld aan goede doelen? Waarom verrichten mensen vrijwilligerswerk? Hoeveel geld gaat er om in de filantropische sector?

RQ: Which regions of the brain are active when task X is performed? Results: Activity in some regions Y is higher than in others.

Presentatie rapport ‘Culturele instellingen in Nederland’ Werkgroep Filantropische Studies Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam   Vrijdag 10 juni 2016, Theater Griffioen, Uilenstede 106, 1183 AM, Amstelveen   In 2012 werd de Geefwet ingevoerd met een multiplier die de aftrekbaarheid van giften aan culturele instellingen verhoogde.

Contribution to the March 2016 edition of the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP) newsletter. PDF version here. Philanthropy can take many forms.

“Thank you for your invitation to review. Did the authors provide the data and the code they have used to produce the paper? Will the paper be published in open access mode? If twice yes, I will consider reviewing the paper.” This is my new automatic reply to requests for review journal articles that I receive from editors and their assistants.

Recently the EUFORI Study was published, in which a network of experts coordinated from our Center for Philanthropic Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam mapped the support from foundations for research and innovation in Europe. Read the synthesis report here. The research was based on an extensive survey of 1 591 foundations supporting R&I in Europe and a qualitative analysis of 29 different country reports.

The Center for Philanthropic Studies I am leading at VU Amsterdam is converting to Open Science. Open Science offers four advantages to the scientific community, nonprofit organizations, and the public at large: Access: we make our work more easily accessible for everyone. Our research serves public goods, which are served best by open access. Efficiency: we make it easier for others to build on our work, which saves time.