The Rise of a Theory Crisis Subsequent to the Methods Crisis

The Rise of a Theory Crisis Subsequent to the Methods Crisis

This thread initiated by Ekaterina Damer has elicited numerous suggestions from psychologists on Twitter.

Below are the majority of the suggestions, attributed to their respective recommenders. I have not read these, but thought it beneficial to compile them in one location. Comments are welcome if you have additional recommendations.

(Iris van Rooij)
[“How does it work?” vs. “What are the laws?” Two interpretations of psychological explanation.](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f5b1/b05e8313aee94ccd98e80eab3ec56dbd2c97.pdf) Robert Cummins

(Ed Orehek)
[Theory Construction in Social Personality Psychology: Personal Experiences and Lessons Learned: A Special Issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327957pspr0802_1)

(Djouria Ghilani)
[Personal Reflections on Theory and Psychology](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959354310378184)
Gerd Gigerenzer,
[Selected Works of Barry N. Markovsky](https://works.bepress.com/barry_markovsky/)

(almost everyone, but Tal Yarkoni phrased it this way)
“Meehl articulated the majority of what can be said about this”
– [Theory-testing in psychology and physics: A methodological paradox](http://meehl.umn.edu/sites/g/files/pua1696/f/074theorytestingparadox.pdf)
– [Appraising and amending theories: The strategy of Lakatosian defense and two principles that warrant it](http://meehl.umn.edu/sites/g/files/pua1696/f/147appraisingamending.pdf)
– [Why summaries of research on psychological theories are frequently uninterpretable](http://meehl.umn.edu/sites/g/files/pua1696/f/144whysummaries.pdf)

(This brings to mind, [PsychBrief](https://twitter.com/PsyBrief) has been reviewing Meehl and offers comprehensive summaries here: [Paul Meehl on philosophy of science: video lectures and papers](http://psychbrief.com/meehl-videos-papers/))

(Burak Tunca)
[What Theory is Not](http://haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/papers/stawtheory.pdf) by Robert I. Sutton & Barry M. Staw

(Joshua Skewes)
Valerie Gray Hardcastle’s “How to build a theory in cognitive science”.

(Randy McCarthy)
Chapter 1 of Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2015). Theory and explanation in social psychology. Guilford Publications.

(Kimberly Quinn)
McGuire, W. J. (1997). [Creative hypothesis generating in psychology: Some useful heuristics](http://sing.stanford.edu/cs303-sp11/papers/mcguire_hypothesis_gen.pdf). Annual review of psychology, 48(1), 1-30.

(Daniël Lakens)
Jaccard, J., & Jacoby, J. (2010). Theory Construction and Model-building Skills: A Practical Guide for Social Scientists. Guilford Press.

Fiedler, K. (2004). Tools, toys, truisms, and theories: Some reflections on the creative process of theory formation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(2), 123–131.

(Tom Stafford)
Roberts and Pashler (2000). [How persuasive is a good fit? A commentary on theory testing](https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt5vt0z72k/qt5vt0z72k.pdf)

From the discussion, it is evident that the theory crisis will be just as intricate and filled with contention as the methods crisis.

**Updates 16 August 2018**

(Richard Prather)
Simmering et al (2010). [To Model or Not to Model? A Dialogue on the Role of Computational Modeling in Developmental Science](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3103214/)

(Brett Buttliere: we created a Facebook group to discuss theory)
[Psychological Theory Discussion Group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/153619768802306/about/)

(Eric Morris)
Wilson, K. G. (2001). [Some notes on theoretical constructs: types and validation from a contextual behavioral perspective](http://www.ijpsy.com/volumen1/num2/23/some-notes-on-theoretical-constructs-types-EN.pdf)

(Michael P. Grosz)
[Theoretical Amnesia](http://