Theory Building Through Replication. Response to Commentaries on the Many Labs Replication Project.

Every replication is different in innumerable ways from the original. Evaluating high-powered replication designs a priori provides an opportunity to examine whether the theory anticipates that any of these differences will matter. Then, the experimental result informs on the theory by either (a) supporting the theory’s generalizability across these presumed, and now demonstrated, irrelevant conditions, or (b) challenging the present theoretical understanding by showing that the effect does not occur under presumed irrelevant conditions, or that it does occur under conditions thought to be not amenable to obtaining the result. Finally, exploratory analysis and post facto evaluation of the outcomes provides fodder for the next iteration of theoretical development and empirical evaluation. Direct replication enables iterative cycling to refine theory and subject it to empirical confrontation