Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

A decade of theory as reflected in Psychological Science (2009–2019)

McPhetres, Jonathon; Albayrak-Aydemir, Nihan; Barbosa Mendes, Ana; Chow, Elvina C.; Gonzalez-Marquez, Patricio; Loukras, Erin; Maus, Annika; O’Mahony, Aoife; Pomareda, Christina; Primbs, Maximilian A.; Sackman, Shalaine L.; Smithson, Conor J.R.; Volodko, Kirill

A decade of theory as reflected in Psychological Science (2009–2019) Thumbnail


Authors

Nihan Albayrak-Aydemir

Ana Barbosa Mendes

Elvina C. Chow

Patricio Gonzalez-Marquez

Erin Loukras

Annika Maus

Aoife O’Mahony

Christina Pomareda

Maximilian A. Primbs

Shalaine L. Sackman

Conor J.R. Smithson

Kirill Volodko



Abstract

The dominant belief is that science progresses by testing theories and moving towards theoretical consensus. While it’s implicitly assumed that psychology operates in this manner, critical discussions claim that the field suffers from a lack of cumulative theory. To examine this paradox, we analysed research published in Psychological Science from 2009–2019 (N = 2,225). We found mention of 359 theories in-text, most were referred to only once. Only 53.66% of all manuscripts included the word theory, and only 15.33% explicitly claimed to test predictions derived from theories. We interpret this to suggest that the majority of research published in this flagship journal is not driven by theory, nor can it be contributing to cumulative theory building. These data provide insight into the kinds of research psychologists are conducting and raises questions about the role of theory in the psychological sciences.

Citation

McPhetres, J., Albayrak-Aydemir, N., Barbosa Mendes, A., Chow, E. C., Gonzalez-Marquez, P., Loukras, E., …Volodko, K. (2021). A decade of theory as reflected in Psychological Science (2009–2019). PLoS ONE, 16(3), Article e0247986. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247986

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date 2021
Deposit Date Mar 31, 2021
Publicly Available Date Jun 30, 2021
Journal PLoS ONE
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 16
Issue 3
Article Number e0247986
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247986

Files

Published Journal Article (727 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2021 McPhetres et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.




You might also like



Downloadable Citations