Failing to replicate predicts citation declines in psychology.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37428904.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.2304862120 and PMC identifier 10629524.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
With a sample of 228 psychology papers that failed to replicate, we tested whether the trajectory of citation patterns changes following the publication of a failure to replicate. Across models, we found consistent evidence that failing to replicate predicted lower future citations and that the size of this reduction increased over time. In a 14-y postpublication period, we estimated that the publication of a failed replication was associated with an average citation decline of 14% for original papers. These findings suggest that the publication of failed replications may contribute to a self-correcting science by decreasing scholars' reliance on unreplicable original findings.