The explanation of psychological phenomena is a central aim of psychological science. However, the nature of explanation and the processes by which we evaluate whether a theory explains a phenomenon are often unclear. Consequently, it is often unknown whether a given psychological theory indeed explains a phenomenon. We address this shortcoming by proposing a productive account of explanation: a theory explains a phenomenon to some degree if and only if a formal model of the theory produces the statistical pattern representing the phenomenon. Using this account, we outline a workable methodology of explanation: (a) explicating a verbal theory into a formal model, (b) representing phenomena as statistical patterns in data, and (c) assessing whether the formal model produces these statistical patterns. In addition, we provide three major criteria for evaluating the goodness of an explanation (precision, robustness, and empirical relevance), and examine some cases of explanatory breakdowns. Finally, we situate our framework within existing theories of explanation from philosophy of science and discuss how our approach contributes to constructing and developing better psychological theories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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富有成效的解释：评估心理科学解释的框架。


对心理现象的解释是心理科学的中心目标。然而，解释的本质以及我们评估理论是否解释现象的过程往往是不清楚的。因此，通常不知道特定的心理学理论是否确实解释了某种现象。我们通过提出一种富有成效的解释来解决这个缺点：当且仅当理论的正式模型产生代表该现象的统计模式时，理论才能在某种程度上解释一种现象。使用这个帐户，我们概述了一种可行的解释方法：（a）将言语理论解释为正式模型，（b）将现象表示为数据中的统计模式，以及（c）评估正式模型是否产生这些统计模式。此外，我们提供了评估解释的好坏的三个主要标准（精确性、稳健性和经验相关性），并检查了一些解释性故障的案例。最后，我们将我们的框架置于现有的科学哲学解释理论中，并讨论我们的方法如何有助于构建和发展更好的心理学理论。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。