A Crisis Without Replication: Replication, the Current Crisis in Psychology, and Open Science Investigated Using Insights From Metascience

Psychology and related fields have been gripped by the replication crisis since at least 2011. In response to this problem, a new field of empirical metascience has emerged, focusing on finding causes and solutions. This development opens a mutually beneficial pathway: philosophy of science can be informed by metascientific results, and metascience can take rigorous insights from philosophy of science as a theoretical basis. Throughout this dissertation, I draw specifically on metascientific evidence as a methodological choice to inform conceptual analyses of key concepts surrounding the replication crisis. In the first chapter, I introduce the replication crisis and the motivation for this dissertation. In the second chapter, I consider the concept of replication and possible accounts of it, argue that the concept is redundant and propose a deflationary account instead. In chapters three to five, I examine the aetiology of the crisis. Chapter three reframes the replication crisis as a crisis of inference, which I show is a better explanation of our surprise at replication failures. This account also enables an integration of the plethora of proposed crises under the umbrella of ill-adjusted inference. The fourth chapter explores the green thumb explanation of individual replication failures and finds it at best unconvincing or even deeply worrying for psychology as a field of research. Chapter five considers the concept of questionable research practices (QRPs), arguing for the elimination of the label. Instead of focusing on QRPs, I argue that we should question research practice and understand instances of practices currently described as QRPs on a context-dependent spectrum from good to bad. Finally, in chapter six I examine the main proposed solutions: open science practices. I explain that these practices can help solve the crisis if we assume a hostile epistemic environment at the core of the problem, but not if we assume widespread epistemic vice. A combination of more appropriate inferences, clearer conceptual thinking, and better as well as more open research practices may help psychology leave its crisis behind while securing its future.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Crüwell, Sophia

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Stegenga, Jacob
• Halina, Marta
• Bird, Alexander

• Replication Crisis
• Replication
• Psychology
• Open Science
• Philosophy of Science
• Metascience
• Inference
• Questionable Research Practices

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/158a78fe-cd7f-4e6d-87af-2aed3665e9ef/download
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0003-4178-5820

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/398819