MEPX
Chapter 8 of 10All chapters
  1. 1What psychology is
  2. 2Learning and conditioning
  3. 3Memory
  4. 4Development
  5. 5Social psychology
  6. 6Personality
  7. 7Mental health
  8. 8The replication crisis
  9. 9How to read a study
  10. 10Where it is used

Chapter 8 of 10

The replication crisis

What changed and why.

What happened

Systematic attempts to repeat published studies found a large share did not hold. Small samples, flexible analysis and publication bias explain most of it.

  • Power posing, ego depletion and many priming results failed to replicate.
  • The response, pre-registration and larger samples, has measurably improved quality.

Reading psychology now

Prefer replicated findings and meta-analyses over single striking studies. A result that made a good headline is a reason for more scepticism, not less.