Welcome to the NICE Research Group

The NICE Research Group is a collection of researchers in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota.

The primary emphasis of the NICE Research Group is on metascientific issues in psychology. This includes theoretical, methodological, and historical issues, as well as scientific reform and open science.

NICE was originally an acronym that stood for Narrative, Identity, Culture, and Education. This reflects the original substantive research focus of the lab, which pertained to identity and personality development among racially/ethnically diverse adolescents and emerging adults. Although we do still continue some of that work–particulalry with external collaborators–it is no longer the primary emphasis of the group. Thus, “NICE” is a dead acronym that no longer stands for anything other than we try to be generally good people, even when we are criticizing other researcher’s work.

Below are a few of our recent publications that we are excited about!

Frisén, A., Wängqvist, M., Carlsson, J., Eriksson, P. L., +Larsson, H., & Syed, M. (in press). The GoLDen method: Venturing a long-longitudinal mixed methods study of identity development. Identity. https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2026.2650528

Syed, M. (in press). Psychology wants to stay WEIRD, not go WILD. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bxk6c_v1

Syed, M. (in press). Some data indicating that editors and reviewers do not check preregistrations during the review process. Journal of Trial & Error. https://doi.org/10.36850/e5ce-4cc5

Carlsson, J., Wängqvist, M, Syed, M., & Frisén, A. (2026). Lost in translation: The conceptual drift from the identity status interview to questionnaire measures. Journal of Adult Development, 33, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-024-09506-6

Syed, M., & Frankenhuis, W. E. (2026). Improving research on developmental psychopathology with Registered Reports. Development and Psychopathology, 38(2), 574-581. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579425100552

Tyner, A. H., Abatayo, A. L., Daley, M., Field, S., Fox, N., Haber, N. A., Hahn, K. M., Kline Struhl, M., Mawhinney, B., Miske, O., Silverstein, P., Soderberg, C. K., Stankov, T.,…Syed, M.,… Nosek, B. A., & Errington, T. M. (2026). Investigating the replicability of the social and behavioral sciences. Nature, 652, 143–150. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-10078-y [open access] full citation

Bottesini, J. G., Chambers, C. D., Howard, A. L., Lucas, R. E., Moore, D. A., Sbarra, D. A., Tackett, J. L., & Syed, M. (2025). Peer Community in Psychology: A platform for peer review of preprints across psychology. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/m456e [Version of Record]

Ghai, S., Thériault, R., Forscher, P., Shoda, Y., Syed, M., Puthillam, A., Peng, H. C., Basnight-Brown, D., Majid, A., Azevedo, F., & Singh, L. (2025). A manifesto for a globally diverse, equitable, and inclusive open science. Communications Psychology, 3(16), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00179-1 (Recipient of a Commendation from the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science)

Syed, M. (2025). Elegant theories and the problems of social psychology. European Review of Social Psychology, 36(2), 298–325. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2025.2494434

Syed, M., & +Westberg, D. W. (2025). Mixed methods research in psychology: Rationales and research designs. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 8(2), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459251343919