What is the conventional significance level (alpha) commonly used in social sciences?

• A. 0.01
• B. 0.05
• C. 0.10
• D. 0.15

Answer: (B)

The default significance level used in social sciences is 0.05, which means we’re willing to accept a 5% chance of declaring an result significant when there is no real effect (a false positive). This threshold became a standard because it strikes a practical balance between detecting true effects and keeping false alarms reasonably rare within typical social science data. When the p-value falls below 0.05, the result is considered statistically significant, suggesting the observed pattern is unlikely to be due to chance under the null hypothesis. Some fields or studies opt for a stricter level like 0.01 for stronger evidence or a more lenient level like 0.10 for exploratory work, but 0.05 remains the common default.