Why Summaries of Research on Psychological Theories are Often Uninterpretable

1990/02/01 by Paul E. Meehl · 2 citations
Psychology · Arts and Humanities · Decision Sciences · #Mental Health Research Topics #Philosophy and History of Science #Meta-analysis and systematic reviews #Psychology #Null hypothesis #Subject (documents) #Psychological research #Psychological Theory #Social psychology #Cognitive psychology #Epistemology #Econometrics #Philosophy #Economics #Computer science

paper · doi:10.2466/pr0.1990.66.1.195

openalex publication_date 1990/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

Null hypothesis testing of correlational predictions from weak substantive theories in soft psychology is subject to the influence of ten obfuscating factors whose effects are usually (1) sizeable, (2) opposed, (3) variable, and (4) unknown. The net epistemic effect of these ten obfuscating influences is that the usual research literature review is well-nigh uninterpretable. Major changes in graduate education, conduct of research, and editorial policy are proposed.

Citations

• Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes
• Theory-Testing in Psychology and Physics: A Methodological Paradox
• Construct validity in psychological tests.
• Theoretical risks and tabular asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the slow progress of soft psychology.
• Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix.
• Conjectures and Refutations
• The fallacy of the null-hypothesis significance test.
• Appraising and Amending Theories: The Strategy of Lakatosian Defense and Two Principles that Warrant It

Cited by

• The earth is round (p < .05).
• Paul E. Meehl [wikipedia]