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Chapter 11 - Troubled Waters of Heraclitus’ River?

A Process View on Reproducibility and Generalization in Psychological Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2022

Paul van Geert
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Naomi de Ruiter
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
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Summary

We reflect on the relative ‘success’ versus ‘failure’ of psychology as a research field, and we challenge the widelybheld notion that we are in a reproducibility (or replication) crisis. At the centre of our discussion is the question: does psychology have a future, qua science, if the phenomena it studies are changing all the time and contingent on fleeting contexts or historical conditions? This chapter describes how there is only a reproducibility crisis if we adopt assumptions and expectations that enact a substance ontology. In contrast, we describe how variability is to be expected if we adopt a process ontology. We argue that the way out of the current ‘crisis’ is therefore not necessarily more methodological and experimental rigour, but a fundamental shift in what we should expect from psychological phenomena. We call for a prioritization of understanding the ways in which phenomena are socially situated and context-contingent, rather than an unrealistic need to replicate.

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Toward a Process Approach in Psychology
Stepping into Heraclitus' River
, pp. 251 - 265
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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