ReviewPloS one2021
A decade of theory as reflected in Psychological Science (2009-2019).
Review in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Reviews in Educational Psychology (Frontiers in Psychology 2010-2024): typology, topics, regional comparative and methodology toward digital and AI approaches.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Pooled it
- To Be FAIR: Theory Specification Needs an Update.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2026Article
- Capturing causal claims: A fine-tuned text mining model for extracting causal sentences from social science papers.Research synthesis methods · 2025Article
- Meta-analysis: a tool for constructing theories or evaluating interventions or simply proving everyday assumptions?Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Primacy of theory? Exploring perspectives on validity in conceptual psychometrics.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Perspectives on scientific error.Royal Society open science · 2023Review
- New Approaches to 3D Vision.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Neuropsychological assessment methodology revisited: metatheoretical reflections.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- In models we trust: preregistration, large samples, and replication may not suffice.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Review
- A social-psychological examination of academic precarity as an organizational practice and subjective experience.The British journal of social psychology · 2023Article
- Chronic Stress Is Associated with Reduced Mindful Acceptance Skills but Not with Mindful Attention Monitoring: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Psychology needs to get tired of winning.Royal Society open science · 2022Review
- Beyond the "Third Wave of Positive Psychology": Challenges and Opportunities for Future Research.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.