A Credibility Revolution for Relationship Science: Where Can We Step Up Our Game?

The discipline of psychology is undergoing a credibility revolution (e.g., Nosek et al., 2022; Vazire et al., 2022), whereby researchers are critically evaluating and improving their research practices. In this review, we consider how the field of relationship science could capitalize on this movement in the context of four types of validity. Regarding statistical- conclusions validity, we find that relationship scientists are engaging in open science practices (e.g., preregistration, open data sharing) at similar rates to other fields in the context of personality and social psychology journals. However, journals that are specific to the field (i.e., close relationships journals) could do more to encourage these practices. Meanwhile, new meta-scientific research suggests that the field would benefit greatly from rigorous, widescale measurement validation work (construct validity), novel strategies to account for causal confounds (internal validity), and more diverse representation in our samples and measures (external validity). Overall, the credibility revolution offers several specific, actionable recommendations to improve the validity of research findings, many of which are highly relevant to relationship science.