Replication study: the case of disappearing teaspoons in a Scottish neuroscience department

In the landmark paper by Lim, Hellard, and Aitken published in 2005, the rate of loss of workplace teaspoons was determined for the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health in Melbourne, Australia. In this institute of 140 people, the half-life of teaspoons in communal tearooms was 42 days and the rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons' value. Authors concluded that the loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, influencing both teaspoon availability and office culture more generally. Over 20 years later, the issue of teaspoon loss from common rooms has not abated, leaving the question 'where have all the bloody teaspoons gone?' unanswered. In this study, we replicated the experiment of Lim and colleagues in a Scottish neuroscience department. 48 teaspoons (24 gold-coloured and 24 much cheaper standard silver coloured) were purchased and placed in the common room of our building which houses 82 researchers. Spoons were counted weekly to monitor attrition. We observed gold teaspoons started disappearing within the first week of data collection and over the course of 10 months of observation, over 66% of all spoons disappeared. The half-life of teaspoons was 182 days for gold spoons and 280 days for silver spoons. A linear model showed significant effects of both time and spoon type. In conclusion, we replicated Lim and colleagues data showing teaspoons are stolen from academic department common rooms, however our data from Scotland show that the more expensive teaspoons were stolen more than the cheaper spoons, contrary to the findings in Melbourne. Pilfering of teaspoons from academic common room remains a problem that warrants further research as it impacts the wellbeing of scientists, at least in two institutes on opposite sides of the globe.