Abstract (may include machine translation)
Pursuing replicability — independent evidence for previous claims — is important for creating generalizable knowledge1,2. Here we attempted replications of 274 claims of positive results from 164 quantitative papers published from 2009 to 2018 in 54 journals in the social and behavioural sciences. Replications were high powered on average to detect the original effect size (median of 99.6%), used original materials when relevant and available, and were peer reviewed in advance through a standardized internal protocol. Replications showed statistically significant results in the original pattern for 151 of 274 claims (55.1% (95% confidence interval (CI) 49.2–60.9%)) and for 80.8 of 164 papers (49.3% (95% CI 43.8–54.7%)), weighed for replicating multiple claims per paper. We observed modest variation in replication rates across disciplines (42.5–63.1%), although some estimates had high uncertainty. The median Pearson’s r effect size was 0.25 (95% CI 0.21–0.27) for original studies and 0.10 (95% CI 0.09–0.13) for replication studies, an 82.4% (95% CI 67.8–88.2%) reduction in shared variance. Thirteen methods for evaluating replication success provided estimates ranging from 28.6% to 74.8% (median of 49.3%). Some decline in effect size and significance is expected based on power to detect original effects and regression to the mean because we replicated only positive results. We observe that challenges for replicability extend across social–behavioural sciences, illustrating the importance of identifying conditions that promote or inhibit replicability3,4.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 143-150 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Nature |
| Volume | 652 |
| Issue number | 8108 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2 Apr 2026 |
Keywords
- Behavioral Sciences/standards
- Humans
- Reproducibility of Results
- Social Sciences/standards
- Uncertainty
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In: Nature, Vol. 652, No. 8108, 02.04.2026, p. 143-150.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating the replicability of the social and behavioural sciences
AU - Tyner, Andrew H.
AU - Abatayo, Anna Lou
AU - Daley, Mason
AU - Field, Samuel
AU - Fox, Nicholas
AU - Haber, Noah A.
AU - Hahn, Krystal M.
AU - Struhl, Melissa Kline
AU - Mawhinney, Brinna
AU - Miske, Olivia
AU - Silverstein, Priya
AU - Soderberg, Courtney K.
AU - Stankov, Theresa
AU - Abbasi, Ahmed
AU - Aberson, Christopher L.
AU - Aczel, Balazs
AU - Adamkovič, Matúš
AU - Albayrak, Nihan
AU - Allen, Peter J.
AU - Andreychik, Michael
AU - Awtrey, Eli
AU - Axxe, Erick
AU - Azevedo, Flavio
AU - Bader, Miles D.
AU - Bago, Bence
AU - Bailey, James
AU - Bakker, Marjan
AU - Banik, Gabriel
AU - Banks, George C.
AU - Baskin, Ernest
AU - Batruch, Anatolia
AU - Beatteay, Annika
AU - Behr, Sophie M.
AU - Berente, Nicholas
AU - Berry, Zachariah
AU - Białkowski, Jędrzej
AU - Bodroža, Bojana
AU - Boeschoten, Laura
AU - Bognar, Miklos
AU - Bokhove, Christian
AU - Bonfiglio, Diane
AU - Bouwman, Robin
AU - Brady, Timothy F.
AU - Braithwaite, Scott R.
AU - Briceño Jiménez, Gabriel
AU - Brick, Cameron
AU - Bricka, Traci
AU - Briker, Roman
AU - Brown, Annette N.
AU - Brown, Gordon D.A.
AU - van Aert, Robbie C.M.
AU - Caldwell, Kathryn
AU - Capitan, Sara
AU - Capitán, Tabaré
AU - Chandler, Jesse
AU - Charles, Tessa
AU - Chartier, Christopher R.
AU - Chawdhary, Rahul
AU - Cheng, Kent Jason
AU - Chopik, William J.
AU - Clark, Bruce
AU - Colvin, Victoria E.
AU - Comer, C. Cozette
AU - Costantini, Giulio
AU - Coupé, Tom
AU - Cummins, Jamie
AU - Czernatowicz-Kukuczka, Aneta
AU - de Leeuw, Joshua
AU - Dobolyi, David
AU - Druckman, James N.
AU - Duan, Jianhua
AU - Dujmović, Marin
AU - Dunleavy, Daniel J.
AU - Durkee, Patrick K.
AU - Emery, Cécile
AU - Esterling, Kevin M.
AU - Evans, Thomas R.
AU - Fedor, Anna
AU - Fernández-Castilla, Belén
AU - Fiala, Nathan
AU - Field, James G.
AU - Fong, Nathan
AU - Fonseca, Miguel A.
AU - Freeman, Alexandra L.J.
AU - Freese, Jeremy
AU - Geiger, Sandra J.
AU - Geng, Jing
AU - Getz, Laura M.
AU - Geven, Linda Marjoleine
AU - Gleibs, Ilka Helene
AU - Gonzales, Donna Pamella
AU - Gooty, Janaki
AU - Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, Amélie
AU - Greculescu, Cristina
AU - Griffin, Siobhán M.
AU - Grigoryan, Lusine
AU - Grunow, Martina
AU - Gunby, Nicholas
AU - Hall, Braeden
AU - Hanel, Paul H.P.
AU - Hannon, Erin E.
AU - Harper, Sam
AU - Held, Marco Jürgen
AU - Hickman, Louis
AU - Higgins, Nathan C.
AU - Hippel, Svenja
AU - Hoeppner, Sven
AU - Hong, Sanghyun
AU - Hostler, Thomas J.
AU - Inzlicht, Michael
AU - Izydorczak, Kamil
AU - Jaeger, Bastian
AU - Jankowsky, Kristin
AU - Jarke-Neuert, Johannes
AU - Jensen, Matthew
AU - Jokić, Biljana
AU - Jolles, Daniel
AU - Jolly, Phillip
AU - Jones, Angela M.
AU - Juanchich, Marie
AU - Kačmár, Pavol
AU - Kapoor, Hansika
AU - Keljanovic, Andjela
AU - Koirala, Samjhana
AU - Kołczyńska, Marta
AU - Kouroupaki, Dimitra
AU - Kühnen, Ulrich
AU - Landgrave, Michelangelo
AU - Larson, Michael J.
AU - Laulié, Lyonel
AU - Lawrence, Alice C.E.
AU - Le Forestier, Joel M.
AU - Leahy, Katelin E.
AU - Lee, Sungmok
AU - Leslie, Jared
AU - Lewis, Savannah C.
AU - Limnios, Christopher
AU - Lin, Hause
AU - Liu, An Chiao
AU - Lloyd, John Wills
AU - Ludvig, Elliot A.
AU - Lynott, Dermot
AU - MacDonald, Jordan
AU - Mallik, Peter
AU - Mallinson, Daniel J.
AU - Marinazzo, Daniele
AU - Martarelli, Corinna S.
AU - Matacotta, Joshua
AU - McBride, Andrew
AU - McHugh, Cillian
AU - McMillan, Gail
AU - Méndez, Esteban
AU - Metzger, Mitchell
AU - Michaelides, Michalis P.
AU - Michalak, Johannes
AU - Micheli, Leticia
AU - Miller, Jeremy K.
AU - Milyavskaya, Marina
AU - Molden, Daniel C.
AU - Monjaras, Ambar G.
AU - Moreau, David
AU - Morrow, Audrey
AU - Moya, Cristóbal
AU - Mudrik, Liad
AU - Mulder, Laetitia B.
AU - Munt, Katie A.
AU - Nandi, Arijit
AU - Nason, Kathryn
AU - Nast, Carolin
AU - Nave, Gideon
AU - Nax, Heinrich H.
AU - Neubauer, Florian
AU - Nguyen, Phuong Linh L.
AU - Nichols, Austin Lee
AU - Nilsonne, Gustav
AU - O’Boyle, Ernest
AU - Oettinghaus, Jule
AU - Oh, Jeewon
AU - Oshana, Adoril
AU - Ostermann, Thomas
AU - Ostrowski, Rachel P.
AU - Oyebanjo, Abiola
AU - Panczak, Radoslaw
AU - Patrianakos, Jamie
AU - Pavez, Ignacio
AU - Pavlov, Yuri G.
AU - Persson, Sofia
AU - Perugini, Marco
AU - Peters, Kim
AU - Pieters, Constant
AU - Ponizovskiy, Vladimir
AU - Porter, Nathaniel D.
AU - Prenoveau, Jason M.
AU - Purić, Danka
AU - Purol, Mariah F.
AU - Puthillam, Arathy
AU - Quinn, Kimberly A.
AU - Ramljak, Marco
AU - Reed, W. Robert
AU - Ritchie, Michaela
AU - Ritzau, Margaret
AU - Roche, Sean Patrick
AU - Rodela, Romina
AU - Röer, Jan Philipp
AU - Ropovik, Ivan
AU - Rothschild, Jacob
AU - Saal, Justine
AU - Safadi, Hani
AU - Samaha, Jason
AU - Sanchez, Mary
AU - Sankaran, Soorya
AU - Santos, David
AU - Sargent, Amanda C.
AU - Sauter, Marian
AU - Schmidt, Kathleen
AU - Schnabel, Landon
AU - Schroeder, Amber N.
AU - Schuetz, Sebastian W.
AU - Schuetze, Brendan A.
AU - Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael
AU - Schütz, Astrid
AU - Sevigny, Eric L.
AU - Shackleton, Ellie
AU - Shafranek, Richard M.
AU - Shaki, Samuel
AU - Shakya, Shishir
AU - Sirota, Miroslav
AU - Sisco, Matthew Ryan
AU - Sitnikov, Maksim M.
AU - Slevc, L. Robert
AU - Smalarz, Laura
AU - Smith, Colin Tucker
AU - Snyder, Joel S.
AU - Sommet, Nicolas
AU - Sonmez, Fatih
AU - Spellman, Barbara A.
AU - Stanulewicz-Buckley, Natalia
AU - Stock, George
AU - Street, Chris N.H.
AU - Strømland, Eirik
AU - Sundelin, Tina
AU - Syed, Moin
AU - Szabelska, Anna
AU - Szaszi, Barnabas
AU - Szumowska, Ewa
AU - Tagat, Anirudh
AU - Täuber, Susanne
AU - Tay, Louis
AU - Thapa, Stuti
AU - Thatcher, Jason
AU - Tsaklakidou, Domna
AU - Tummers, Lars
AU - Turkovich, Elise
AU - Tutor, Melba Verra
AU - Urbanska, Karolina
AU - van ’t Veer, Anna Elisabeth
AU - van Assen, Marcel
AU - van de Ven, Niels
AU - van den Goorbergh, Ruben
AU - Vargo, Elisabeth Julie
AU - Vaughn, Leigh Ann
AU - Vazire, Simine
AU - Vermeulen, Jentien M.
AU - Vo, Diem Thi Hong
AU - Volkman, Victor
AU - Wagenmakers, Eric Jan
AU - Wagner, Deliah
AU - Walasek, Lukasz
AU - Walter, Frank
AU - Warmelink, Lara
AU - Wei, Liuqing
AU - Weißflog, Marie Isabelle
AU - Weller, Nicholas
AU - Wichman, Aaron L.
AU - Wilbiks, Jonathan
AU - Williams, Jamal R.
AU - Wolfe, Kelly
AU - Wort, Finnian
AU - Wright, Ryan
AU - Wulff, Jesper N.
AU - Xue, Xindong
AU - Yan, Veronica X.
AU - Yang, Yuzhi
AU - Yoon, Sangsuk
AU - Žeželj, Iris
AU - Zhang, Yinxian
AU - Ziano, Ignazio
AU - Zogmaister, Cristina
AU - Zupan, Zorana
AU - Zwaan, Rolf A.
AU - Nosek, Brian A.
AU - Errington, Timothy M.
N1 - © 2026. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2026/4/2
Y1 - 2026/4/2
N2 - Pursuing replicability — independent evidence for previous claims — is important for creating generalizable knowledge1,2. Here we attempted replications of 274 claims of positive results from 164 quantitative papers published from 2009 to 2018 in 54 journals in the social and behavioural sciences. Replications were high powered on average to detect the original effect size (median of 99.6%), used original materials when relevant and available, and were peer reviewed in advance through a standardized internal protocol. Replications showed statistically significant results in the original pattern for 151 of 274 claims (55.1% (95% confidence interval (CI) 49.2–60.9%)) and for 80.8 of 164 papers (49.3% (95% CI 43.8–54.7%)), weighed for replicating multiple claims per paper. We observed modest variation in replication rates across disciplines (42.5–63.1%), although some estimates had high uncertainty. The median Pearson’s r effect size was 0.25 (95% CI 0.21–0.27) for original studies and 0.10 (95% CI 0.09–0.13) for replication studies, an 82.4% (95% CI 67.8–88.2%) reduction in shared variance. Thirteen methods for evaluating replication success provided estimates ranging from 28.6% to 74.8% (median of 49.3%). Some decline in effect size and significance is expected based on power to detect original effects and regression to the mean because we replicated only positive results. We observe that challenges for replicability extend across social–behavioural sciences, illustrating the importance of identifying conditions that promote or inhibit replicability3,4.
AB - Pursuing replicability — independent evidence for previous claims — is important for creating generalizable knowledge1,2. Here we attempted replications of 274 claims of positive results from 164 quantitative papers published from 2009 to 2018 in 54 journals in the social and behavioural sciences. Replications were high powered on average to detect the original effect size (median of 99.6%), used original materials when relevant and available, and were peer reviewed in advance through a standardized internal protocol. Replications showed statistically significant results in the original pattern for 151 of 274 claims (55.1% (95% confidence interval (CI) 49.2–60.9%)) and for 80.8 of 164 papers (49.3% (95% CI 43.8–54.7%)), weighed for replicating multiple claims per paper. We observed modest variation in replication rates across disciplines (42.5–63.1%), although some estimates had high uncertainty. The median Pearson’s r effect size was 0.25 (95% CI 0.21–0.27) for original studies and 0.10 (95% CI 0.09–0.13) for replication studies, an 82.4% (95% CI 67.8–88.2%) reduction in shared variance. Thirteen methods for evaluating replication success provided estimates ranging from 28.6% to 74.8% (median of 49.3%). Some decline in effect size and significance is expected based on power to detect original effects and regression to the mean because we replicated only positive results. We observe that challenges for replicability extend across social–behavioural sciences, illustrating the importance of identifying conditions that promote or inhibit replicability3,4.
KW - Behavioral Sciences/standards
KW - Humans
KW - Reproducibility of Results
KW - Social Sciences/standards
KW - Uncertainty
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105034818423
U2 - 10.1038/s41586-025-10078-y
DO - 10.1038/s41586-025-10078-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 41922700
AN - SCOPUS:105034818423
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 652
SP - 143
EP - 150
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 8108
ER -