AUTHOR=Witte Erich H. , Stanciu Adrian , Zenker Frank TITLE=Predicted as observed? How to identify empirically adequate theoretical constructs JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.980261 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.980261 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

The identification of an empirically adequate theoretical construct requires determining whether a theoretically predicted effect is sufficiently similar to an observed effect. To this end, we propose a simple similarity measure, describe its application in different research designs, and use computer simulations to estimate the necessary sample size for a given observed effect. As our main example, we apply this measure to recent meta-analytical research on precognition. Results suggest that the evidential basis is too weak for a predicted precognition effect of d = 0.20 to be considered empirically adequate. As additional examples, we apply this measure to object-level experimental data from dissonance theory and a recent crowdsourcing hypothesis test, as well as to meta-analytical data on the correlation of personality traits and life outcomes.