FLi Psychology Program

In recent years, psychological studies have been grappling with the “replication crisis”: many notable experiments have not been producing similar results. Despite multiple studies highlighting experiments that fail to replicate, there are structural issues that exacerbate critically examining these ongoing credibility concerns: There is no incentive for young academics to publish.

Many young scholars — graduate students and assistant professors — are pressured to produce novel experiments in order to advance in their program. Therefore, dissertations to earn PhDs or peer-reviewed publications (a currency necessary to obtain tenure-track positions) are not always encouraged to replicate past projects. This makes it difficult for current researchers to prioritize replication projects compared to novel experiments. This also makes accessing research funds to lead such projects difficult, as large funding institutions (e.g. NIH and NSF) may not financially reward such initiatives.