Meta-Analysis in the Context of Psychological Theory Development

Psychology is currently facing a reproducibility crisis. It has been proposed that this replication crisis may be rooted in issues of theory development. Theory development is still seen as a creative process, to which methodological norms are hardly ever applied. We propose that meta-analytical techniques can serve as valuable tools in the methodological framework for theory development in Psychology. Meta-analysis was developed as a method for evaluating the worth of interventions, but it has since been adopted by psychologists to synthesise non-interventional research as well. Despite its popularity among psychological researchers, it is unknown how noninterventional meta-analyses have been used to advance psychological theory development. Philosophers of science have proposed that pairwise meta-analytical methods are best suited for detecting phenomena, but modern meta-analytical techniques have allowed for the investigation of complex phenomena and may offer unexplored possibilities if used in the context of theory development. Thus, in this project we will investigate how meta-analysis has been used in psychological theory development and demonstrate how meta-analytical methods can be employed to generate and develop psychological theories.  Moreover, we will determine whether the introduction of modern meta-analytical techniques have changed the role of meta-analysis in psychological research.