{"id":372034,"date":"2026-04-24T18:57:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T18:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/?p=372034"},"modified":"2026-04-24T18:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T18:57:15","slug":"the-rise-of-a-theory-crisis-subsequent-to-the-methods-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/?p=372034","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of a Theory Crisis Subsequent to the Methods Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This thread initiated by Ekaterina Damer has elicited numerous suggestions from psychologists on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>(Iris van Rooij)<br \/>\n[\u201cHow does it work?\u201d vs. \u201cWhat are the laws?\u201d Two interpretations of psychological explanation.](https:\/\/pdfs.semanticscholar.org\/f5b1\/b05e8313aee94ccd98e80eab3ec56dbd2c97.pdf) Robert Cummins<\/p>\n<p>(Ed Orehek)<br \/>\n[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)<\/p>\n<p>(Djouria Ghilani)<br \/>\n[Personal Reflections on Theory and Psychology](http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1177\/0959354310378184)<br \/>\nGerd Gigerenzer,<br \/>\n[Selected Works of Barry N. Markovsky](https:\/\/works.bepress.com\/barry_markovsky\/)<\/p>\n<p>(almost everyone, but Tal Yarkoni phrased it this way)<br \/>\n\u201cMeehl articulated the majority of what can be said about this\u201d<br \/>\n&#8211; [Theory-testing in psychology and physics: A methodological paradox](http:\/\/meehl.umn.edu\/sites\/g\/files\/pua1696\/f\/074theorytestingparadox.pdf)<br \/>\n&#8211; [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)<br \/>\n&#8211; [Why summaries of research on psychological theories are frequently uninterpretable](http:\/\/meehl.umn.edu\/sites\/g\/files\/pua1696\/f\/144whysummaries.pdf)  <\/p>\n<p>(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\/))<\/p>\n<p>(Burak Tunca)<br \/>\n[What Theory is Not](http:\/\/haas.berkeley.edu\/faculty\/papers\/stawtheory.pdf) by Robert I. Sutton &amp; Barry M. Staw<\/p>\n<p>(Joshua Skewes)<br \/>\nValerie Gray Hardcastle\u2019s \u201cHow to build a theory in cognitive science\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>(Randy McCarthy)<br \/>\nChapter 1 of Gawronski, B., &amp; Bodenhausen, G. V. (2015). Theory and explanation in social psychology. Guilford Publications.<\/p>\n<p>(Kimberly Quinn)<br \/>\nMcGuire, 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.<\/p>\n<p>(Dani\u00ebl Lakens)<br \/>\nJaccard, J., &amp; Jacoby, J. (2010). Theory Construction and Model-building Skills: A Practical Guide for Social Scientists. Guilford Press.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2013131.<\/p>\n<p>(Tom Stafford)<br \/>\nRoberts and Pashler (2000). [How persuasive is a good fit? A commentary on theory testing](https:\/\/cloudfront.escholarship.org\/dist\/prd\/content\/qt5vt0z72k\/qt5vt0z72k.pdf)<\/p>\n<p>From the discussion, it is evident that the theory crisis will be just as intricate and filled with contention as the methods crisis.<\/p>\n<p>**Updates 16 August 2018**<\/p>\n<p>(Richard Prather)<br \/>\nSimmering 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\/)<\/p>\n<p>(Brett Buttliere: we created a Facebook group to discuss theory)<br \/>\n[Psychological Theory Discussion Group](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/153619768802306\/about\/)<\/p>\n<p>(Eric Morris)<br \/>\nWilson, 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)<\/p>\n<p>(Michael P. Grosz)<br \/>\n[Theoretical Amnesia](http:\/\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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) [\u201cHow does it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[176],"class_list":["post-372034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-source-mindhacks-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/372035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wolfscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}