The Theory Specification Challenge: A Collective Effort for Specifying Classic Theories of Social Psychology
Presenters: Andreas Glöckner (University of Cologne), & Susann Fiedler (WU Vienna)
Time / date: Fr, January, 24, 2025, 13:00 - 14:30
ZOOM - LINK: https://uni-koeln.zoom.us/j/98688112273?pwd=9CMviaLykSbOUk5RBvCWc61DwmbyQF.1
One challenge for psychology is to improve our theorizing, often referred to as theory crisis in psychology. Specifically, in publications and symposia (e.g., at the most recent DGP congress in vienna) it has been repeatedly highlighted that we need to overcome the predominance of verbal theories, and strategic ambiguity in theory specification.
Solving the problem is only possible with a collective effort and we think that (after several not fully successful attempts in the past) time is ripe to start it now. Instead of complaining about the problem, social psychologists should (again) take the lead to start solving the theory specification problem in their field. As a starting point, we propose a 8 month challenge for formally specifying classic theories of social psychology:
SpecifyingSocialPsychForBochum2025
Specifically, we invite researchers on all career levels to take part in a theory specification challenge, the results of which will be presented and discussed at the meeting of the section social psychology Fachgruppentagung Sozialpsychologie in Bochum in September 2025.
We furthermore plan to share results and insights (may they be positive or disillusioning) in an open access ressource for teaching and persons who contribute a specification can become co-authors on a collaborative paper.
In the online event, we will (a) outline (or for some participants repeat) a simple possibility to formalize theories in the form of implications and propositions (if - then statements). Materials and guidelines will be provided so that potential contributors are enabled to use a common (and simple) method for specifying theories without any specific prior knowledge. Furthermore, we (b) present a list of theories that we aim to specify in this challenge. We (c) aim to discuss how to potentially improve aspects of theory specification further, and finally (d) we aim to get together a first group of people that are interested in taking part.