The Wheels of Scientific Progress: Integrative Theory Building in Decision Science

Abstract: We put forward a collaborative research program for integrative theory building in psychology. As an example, we consider the field of decision science. Our approach involves testing general principles deduced from multiple theories rather than testing local theories against each other. A structurally fixed but generic research paradigm allows for incorporating a wide range of variables and a sound comparison of results. The goal is to arrive at a powerful theory reliably explaining a maximum of variance with a minimum of causal principles proposed. To achieve this, empirical research is organized in a strictly competitive fashion so that candidate factors are always assessed in competition to a set of fundamental principles that already survived a supervised replication procedure.