The replication crisis is both the result of suboptimal theorizing and the consequence of problematic statistics. Psychological science suffers from "parallel" and "mini" theories, as well as analogies that stand-in for well-defined theoretical frameworks. This tendency leads to the frequent reporting of intriguing yet isolated findings, which exist outside of established theories. This practice not only overlooks existing theories but also hinders the integration of knowledge within a comprehensive theoretical framework.
Kuhn (1996) suggested that science progresses in phases. He calls the initial stage of young disciplines protoscience. At this stage, disciplines gravitate towards exploratory rather than theory-driven research. His characterization of protoscience perfectly matches the current state of psychological science. According to Kuhn, the maturation of a field requires the development of a research paradigm. A paradigm serves as cohesive framework that unifies theory, measurement instruments, values, and underlying metaphysical assumptions. A paradigm is shared and agreed upon by the research community. While psychology offers such theories they are not widely used. I believe this is the result of the ubiquitous demand to make theoretical contributions. In contrast, paradigmatic research implies that scientists examine auxiliary assumptions while leaving the broader theoretical framework untouched. Rather than changing the theoretical framework, paradigmatic science strives for highly accurate measures and relatively small specifications of theoretical assumptions in the form of auxiliary assumptions. We will discuss whether psychology can adopt a paradigm and how changes in the research and review process can support this change.