Self-correction—a key feature distinguishing science from pseudoscience—requires that scientists update their beliefs in light of new evidence. However, people are often reluctant to change their beliefs. We examined belief updating in action by tracking research psychologists’ beliefs in psychological effects before and after the completion of four large-scale replication projects. We found that psychologists did update their beliefs; they updated as much as they predicted they would, but not as much as our Bayesian model suggests they should if they trust the results. We found no evidence that psychologists became more critical of replications when it would have preserved their pre-existing beliefs. We also found no evidence that personal investment or lack of expertise discouraged belief updating, but people higher on intellectual humility updated their beliefs slightly more. Overall, our results suggest that replication studies can contribute to self-correction within psychology, but psychologists may underweight their evidentiary value.

自我修正——区分科学与伪科学的一个关键特征——要求科学家根据新证据更新他们的信念。然而，人们往往不愿意改变他们的信念。我们通过跟踪研究心理学家在四个大型复制项目完成前后对心理影响的信念来检查行动中的信念更新。我们发现心理学家确实更新了他们的信念；他们更新的次数与他们预测的一样多，但没有我们的贝叶斯模型建议的那么多，如果他们相信结果的话。我们没有发现任何证据表明心理学家在复制本可以保留他们先前存在的信念时变得更加批评。我们也没有发现任何证据表明个人投资或缺乏专业知识会阻碍信念更新，但是知识谦逊程度较高的人更新他们的信念的程度略高。总的来说，我们的结果表明，复制研究有助于心理学的自我纠正，但心理学家可能低估了它们的证据价值。