This discussion thread commenced by Ekaterina Damer on Twitter has generated a variety of recommendations from psychologists, which have been gathered here for ease of access. While these works have not been personally evaluated, they may pique the interest of those wishing to explore psychological theory and explanation further. Comments for additional recommendations are encouraged.
1. **Robert Cummins**: [“How does it work?” vs. “What are the laws?” Two perspectives of psychological explanation](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f5b1/b05e8313aee94ccd98e80eab3ec56dbd2c97.pdf). Suggested by Iris van Rooij.
2. **Ed Orehek**: [Theory Construction in Social Personality Psychology: Personal Insights and Lessons Acquired](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327957pspr0802_1).
3. **Gerd Gigerenzer**: [Personal Insights on Theory and Psychology](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959354310378184). Suggested by Djouria Ghilani. Additionally, check out the [Selected Works of Barry N. Markovsky](https://works.bepress.com/barry_markovsky/).
4. **Meehl’s Writings**: Recommended by numerous individuals, particularly Tal Yarkoni. Significant papers include:
– [Theory-testing in psychology and physics: A methodological conundrum](http://meehl.umn.edu/sites/g/files/pua1696/f/074theorytestingparadox.pdf).
– [Evaluating and altering theories: The approach of Lakatosian defense and two tenets that support it](http://meehl.umn.edu/sites/g/files/pua1696/f/147appraisingamending.pdf).
– [Reasons why summaries of research on psychological theories tend to be perplexing](http://meehl.umn.edu/sites/g/files/pua1696/f/144whysummaries.pdf).
For more summaries: [Paul Meehl on philosophy of science](http://psychbrief.com/meehl-videos-papers/).
5. **Burak Tunca**: [What Theory is Not](http://haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/papers/stawtheory.pdf) authored by Robert I. Sutton & Barry M. Staw.
6. **Joshua Skewes**: Valerie Gray Hardcastle’s “How to formulate a theory in cognitive science”.
7. **Randy McCarthy**: Chapter 1 from Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2015). Theory and explanation in social psychology. Guilford Publications.
8. **Kimberly Quinn**: [Innovative hypothesis generation in psychology: Helpful heuristics](http://sing.stanford.edu/cs303-sp11/papers/mcguire_hypothesis_gen.pdf) by McGuire, W. J. (1997).
9. **Daniël Lakens**: Jaccard, J., & Jacoby, J. (2010). Theory Construction and Model-building Skills: A Practical Handbook for Social Scientists. Guilford Press. In addition, Fiedler, K. (2004). Tools, toys, truisms, and theories: Some reflections on the creative cycle of theory development.
10. **Tom Stafford**: [How convincing is a good fit? A discussion on theory evaluation](https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt5vt0z72k/qt5vt0z72k.pdf) by Roberts and Pashler (2000).
This conversation illustrates that the theory crisis within psychology is as intricate and multifaceted as the methods crisis.
**Updates as of August 16, 2018**:
– **Richard Prather**: [To Model or Not to Model? A Conversation regarding the Role of Computational Modeling in Developmental Science](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3103214/) by Simmering et al (2010).
– **Brett Buttliere**: Explore the [Psychological Theory Discussion Group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/153619768802306/about/) on Facebook for engaging discussions about theory.
– **Eric Morris**: [Some observations on theoretical constructs: types and validation from a contextual behavioral viewpoint](http://www.ijpsy.com/volumen1/num2/23/some-notes-on-theoretical-constructs-types-EN.pdf) by Wilson, K. G. (2001).
– **Michael P. Grosz**: [Theoretical Amnesia](http://osc.centerforopenscience.org/2013/11/20/theoretical-amnesia/) by Denny Borsboom.
– **Ivan Grahek**: [What Constit