Replication in Social Science

2017/05/19 by Jeremy Freese, David Peterson · 1 voice · 6 citations
Mathematics · Decision Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Advanced Causal Inference Techniques #Meta-analysis and systematic reviews #Philosophy and History of Science

paper · doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053450

openalex publication_date 2017/05/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Across the medical and social sciences, new discussions about replication have led to transformations in research practice. Sociologists, however, have been largely absent from these discussions. The goals of this review are to introduce sociologists to these developments, synthesize insights from science studies about replication in general, and detail the specific issues regarding replication that occur in sociology. The first half of the article argues that a sociologically sophisticated understanding of replication must address both the ways that replication rules and conventions evolved within an epistemic culture and how those cultures are shaped by specific research challenges. The second half outlines the four main dimensions of replicability in quantitative sociology—verifiability, robustness, repeatability, and generalizability—and discusses the specific ambiguities of interpretation that can arise in each. We conclude by advocating some commonsense changes to promote replication while acknowledging the epistemic diversity of our field.

Citations

• Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science
• Model Uncertainty in Sociological Research: An Application to Religion and Economic Growth
• Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect.
• <i>E Pluribus Unum</i>: Diversity and Community in the Twenty‐first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture
• The Third Wave of Science Studies
• Trust Thy Crooked Neighbor
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• <i>The Logic of Scientific Discovery</i>
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Cited by

• Toward a more credible assessment of the credibility of science by many-analyst studies
• Large language models can predict the results of social science experiments
• Improving Social Science: Lessons from the Open Science Movement
• Reproducibility and robustness of economics and political science research
• Antiblack Discrimination in Public Accommodations: Differential Drink Pricing in Urban Nightclubs
• Peer opinion and the legitimacy of international organizations

Discussions

• This is a very good post. Based on my understanding of replication, robustness tests should not be subsumed under it (differently than argued here, for example (figure 2, doi.org/10.1146/annu...). I [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]

Related

• Shall we Really do it Again? The Powerful Concept of Replication is Neglected in the Social Sciences
• The social replication of replication: Moving replication through epistemic communities
• Replication After Collins: An Ethnography of Current Replication Studies in Psychology
• Making replication mainstream
• Replication is possible, can be relevant, and is useful in qualitative research