A Speculative Theory of Replication Failures in Social Psychology: The Empty-Self Metaphor

Klein, J. W., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2026). Social psychology’s empty-self metaphor and the replication crisis. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 21(2), 138–153. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916251401849. Klein and Swann (2026) offer an interesting diagnosis of the replication crisis, but the evidence does not support the strength of their theoretical interpretation. Their central empirical…