Incentives and the replication crisis in social sciences: A critical review of open science practices

Abstract

The replication crisis in the social sciences has revealed systemic issues undermining the credibility of research findings, primarily driven by misaligned incentives that encourage questionable research practices (QRPs). This paper offers a comprehensive and critical review of recent empirical evidence on the effectiveness of Open Science initiatives—such as replication studies, reproducibility efforts, pre-registrations, and registered reports—in addressing the root causes of the replication crisis. Building upon and extending prior reviews, we integrate recent theoretical models from economics with empirical findings across several social science disciplines to assess how these practices impact research integrity. Our review demonstrates that while measures like pre-registration and data sharing have advanced transparency, they often fall short in mitigating QRPs due to persistent incentive misalignments. In contrast, registered reports and megastudies show greater promise by fundamentally reshaping the incentive structure, shifting the focus from producing statistically significant results to emphasizing methodological rigor and meaningful research questions. We argue that realigning incentives is crucial for fostering a culture of integrity and offer policy recommendations involving key stakeholders—including authors, journals, editors, reviewers, and institutions—to promote practices that enhance research reliability and credibility across the social sciences.