What is it about?
This paper seeks to identify possible metaphysical-qua-ontological sources of replication failures in psychological research. The main conjecture is that psychological phenomena are objectively probabilistic in nature. This probabilistic nature prevents high rates of replication even under ideal methodological conditions of experimental control, statistical analysis, and such.
Featured Image
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The conjecture questions construing a high rate of replication failures in psychology as a ‘crisis.’ There are only phenomena that, by their objectively probabilistic nature, do not allow for as many replications as we wish or need. This way of thinking about replication failures in psychology is more realistic and fosters a more positive attitude towards them. They are as constitutive of psychological phenomena as are successes. Rather than lamenting replication failures, a defeatist attitude, it is more constructive and liberating to think of them as telling us something about what psychological phenomena really are. In this manner, replication efforts become vital.
Perspectives
An unfortunate but humbling and inevitable consequence is that any attempts to apply research results to solve psychological problems in society are likely to fail. It would thus be intellectually more honest for psychologists to acknowledge this, admitting that the objectively probabilistic nature of psychological phenomena precludes high rates of successful applications. Many efforts to improve the human condition will fail, but this is not psychologists’ fault. It is how psychological phenomena really are, and the sooner consumers of psychology understand this, the better. Warning about this up front thus becomes a priority in psychologists’ efforts to convince others of psychology’s social relevance, under the argument that some successes, however few, are much better than no successes at all.
JOSÉ E. BURGOS
Universidad de Guadalajara
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Getting ontologically serious about the replication crisis in psychology., Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, June 2024, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/teo0000281.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
