Frontiers in Psychology (Dec 2022)

Predicted as observed? How to identify empirically adequate theoretical constructs

  • Erich H. Witte,
  • Adrian Stanciu,
  • Frank Zenker

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.980261
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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The identification of an empirically adequate theoretical construct requires determining whether a theoretically predicted effect is sufficiently similar to an observed effect. To this end, we propose a simple similarity measure, describe its application in different research designs, and use computer simulations to estimate the necessary sample size for a given observed effect. As our main example, we apply this measure to recent meta-analytical research on precognition. Results suggest that the evidential basis is too weak for a predicted precognition effect of d = 0.20 to be considered empirically adequate. As additional examples, we apply this measure to object-level experimental data from dissonance theory and a recent crowdsourcing hypothesis test, as well as to meta-analytical data on the correlation of personality traits and life outcomes.

Keywords