Replication Crisis
What is The Replication Crisis?
The replication crisis refers to the growing concern in scientific research, particularly within the social sciences like psychology, about the credibility of original work, as we often fail to reproduce the same results when the study or experiment is repeated. The term gained prominence in the early to mid-2010s when a large-scale replication project revealed that fewer than half of the tested studies could be successfully replicated. This growing awareness has led to scrutiny of research practices as well as efforts to refine methodology and improve transparency in scientific research. The replication crisis has undermined trust within the scientific community and beyond, due to falsification of data, methodological issues, and misrepresentation, and has led to the retraction of prominent theories and criticism of renowned scientists.
The Basic Idea
Your grandma bakes the best chocolate chip cookies, so when your friend asks for a good recipe to impress her new neighbors, you happily pass hers along. Later, your friend thanks you with a few of the cookies they baked, but they just don't taste right. You bake them yourself for a movie night, but they're still not as good as you remember. Determined, you bake them again, and again, but they still aren't as good as your grandma's batch. Are Grandma's cookies just a fluke? Are you forgetting a detail? What's different—is it the flour, the oven temperature, or the bake time?
This is what the replication crisis looks like—only in baking science. A study makes a bold claim, people believe it's true, and then when others try to replicate the findings, they can't. Whether it's a perfect cookie or a celebrated psychological theory, the replication crisis has made us question which “recipes” in science can truly be trusted. Back in the 2010s, it felt like a true crisis, but since then, it has also sparked positive change. Researchers are now more transparent about their practices, sharing detailed documentation of their data and analytical methods. Practices like preregistration and using larger sample sizes have become common requirements for experiments to be published and taken seriously.1
Still, the replication crisis has led to an erosion of public trust. Many people began to doubt the reliability of scientific findings, undermining confidence in experts—an issue that continues to grow today. To ensure that research advances knowledge rather than fueling skepticism and causing polarization, the scientific community is working to prevent future replication challenges through greater transparency and accountability.1
Publish or Perish
— A mantra reflecting the academic pressure to continually publish research to maintain relevancy and funding, often prioritizing quantity over quality.2
About the Author
Lauren Strano
Lauren is a Summer Content Intern at The Decision Lab and a full-time undergraduate student at McGill University, where she studies Psychology, Communications, and Behavioral Science. She is particularly interested in human motivation and performance psychology, with a focus on how cognitive biases and environmental factors influence goal pursuit and behavioral outcomes.
