The credibility revolution in psychological science

Title: The credibility revolution in psychological science

Presenter(s): Simine Vazire, Department of Psychology

Abstract: A fundamental part of the scientific enterprise is for each field to engage in critical self-examination to detect errors in our theories and methods, and improve them. Psychology has recently been undergoing such a self-examination. Psychological scientists arguably tackle one of the hardest phenomena to understand and predict: human behavior. Naturally, our data are noisy and our findings are often tentative. However, we are slowly building knowledge and making our theories more complete. The recent self-analysis has revealed several ways we can further improve our research practices to make our findings more credible, including: collecting larger datasets, being more transparent about our research process and results, pre-registering new studies, and conducting more replications.  These new norms are gaining steam within psychology and beyond, making science more credible.