Psychological science has seen an explosion of metascientific work on improving research practices, especially in the area of replicability (reducing false positives). This movement, sometimes called the credibility revolution, has spread to address other problems afflicting psychological science. Here we focus on the “four validities” (Shadish et al., 2002) and highlight some of the most important developments aimed at improving these four validities in psychology research. We propose that the credibility revolution in psychology, while having its roots in replicability, has spurred major advances in validity more broadly, and much of this work has been led by early career researchers.

Improvements to the validity of psychological science depend upon more than the actions of individual researchers. Editors, journals, and publishers wield considerable power in shaping the incentives that have ushered in the generalizability crisis. These gatekeepers must raise their standards to ensure authors’ claims are supported by evidence. Unless gatekeepers change, changes made by individual scientists will not be sustainable.