One of the most talked-about issues in psychology research today is the replication problem. It doesn’t imply that studies aren’t being replicated. It means that they are being replicated, and there are serious repercussions and reactions to this from those within and outside of the psych research community. Studies that have been heralded as supporting major theories in the psych research community for decades are being replicated – that is, new researchers are redoing old studies – and finding that the results are insignificant the second time around. In fact, one study replicated 100 previous psych studies and found that 60% failed to replicate the significant results originally found. This poses a problem for credibility of the original researchers, since it shows that their research, and thus, big ideas in psychology, are not necessarily true.

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To make matters more complicated, some of the original researchers who have been called out for their faulty procedures rebut by attacking the replication, saying that they would have done it differently. People aren’t simply surrendering to the fact that their research failed replication studies.

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Second, this article brings up the issue of questioning the credibility of psych research. Moderator effects, or variables that affect the relationship between two things, influence the results of a study. If a subject is participating in an experiment where they are doing something as simple as answering a survey, there are many variables that affect that person’s results! How long is the survey – will they answer as thoughtfully on question 43 as they did on question 2? How much sleep did they get last night? Are they hungry? Too full? Too warm? Too cold? Are they pissed off because of that fight they had right before walking into the study? There are too many variables to count that could affect a subject’s results.

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The problem with this is, when does the recognition of moderator effects begin to wear on how much credibility a study holds? Since every psych study has moderator effects of some variety, this could give people the power to argue that the science of psychology is meaningless. Umm,what? That escalated quickly.  

Why is this such a new issue? Why haven’t we heard more about replication studies before?

• The top science journals are looking to publish new, exciting data – not some study that just repeats what was already tested in another study. How boring would that be?

• Researchers want to get into those top journals, which means they feel pressure to produce the new, groundbreaking study. No one wants to be replicating other peoples’ studies for a living, right?

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A Step in the Right Direction:

There is now a Registered Replication Reports initiative to encourage both researchers and reviewers on how to do and read effective replicated research and to show how easy it can be.       https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/replication