Scientific curiosity

The first potential cause of construct proliferation that we consider is a noble one—one born from scientific curiosity. Many I-O researchers enter the field because they wish to pursue interesting scientific questions, explore new topics, and find novel ways to address work-related challenges and opportunities. At their core, most of us hope to advance the field and make the world a better place. As part of the exploration process, we often strive to examine topics in new ways and discover new phenomena, with the goal of adding to the larger body of scientific knowledge. But in the midst of this enthusiasm, we sometimes “discover” new constructs that already exist under another name. This phenomenon, of course, is not unique to I-O psychology. In the early 2000s, for example, paleontologists unearthed a seemingly new species of dinosaur that, in a playful nod to the bestselling Harry Potter book series, was given the name Dracorex hogwartsia. Later analyses, however, determined that D. hogwartsia was in fact a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus (Goodwin & Evans, Reference Goodwin and Evans2016). The “new” dinosaur species, in the end, was not so new. Situations like these arise when, in good faith, scientists dare to push the boundaries of existing knowledge.

As a part of scientific curiosity, a given scientific discipline may present a new, ostensibly improved construct to coexist with an existing construct it perhaps was supposed to replace. This may occur in part because of historical drift in the conceptualizations of definitions (Ross et al., Reference Ross, Toth, Heggestad and Banks2025) or even cascading adaptation of psychometrically validated scales where items become less and less representative of constructs over time (Heggestad et al., Reference Heggestad, Scheaf, Banks, Hausfeld, Tonidandel and Williams2019). This problem can be further exacerbated when different disciplines that have introduced similar constructs fail to communicate with each other (Heggestad et al., Reference Heggestad, Voss, Ross, Toth, Banks and Canevello2023).

The pursuit of citations

Construct proliferation can also result from the pursuit of a high citation count. As many researchers are aware, an article that introduces a novel construct may be cited hundreds or thousands of times (e.g., Duckworth et al., Reference Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews and Kelly2007; Tepper, Reference Tepper2000; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Waldman, Han and Li2015). Knowing this, researchers may be tempted to introduce their own “new” constructs. And it’s hard to fault them, because researchers are often rewarded for achieving high citation counts. Promotion and tenure packets, for instance, often reference a candidate’s citation count, as do nominations for professional distinctions (e.g., SIOP fellowship). Journals are also rewarded for publishing papers that attain high citation counts. A high citation count will increase a journal’s impact factor, thus contributing to its perceived status within the discipline.

Differences in academic and lay perspectives

Construct proliferation may also occur when researchers make distinctions between constructs that most research participants wouldn’t make (Le et al., Reference Le, Schmidt, Harter and Lauver2010; Le & Pan, Reference Le and Pan2021; Shaffer et al., Reference Shaffer, DeGeest and Li2016). When developing scales for a new construct, researchers often rely on subject matter experts (SMEs) such as professors, I-O practitioners, or doctoral students to evaluate item content. Drawing from their formal training in I-O psychology, these SMEs may easily detect minute differences between highly similar items. Consider the following items drawn from measures of transformational leadership, servant leadership, and ethical leadership, respectively: My supervisor considers the moral and ethical consequences of decisions (this item concerns decision making as opposed to treatment of individual employees, and it reflects only the consideration of consequences but not actual behaviors); My supervisor holds employees to high ethical standards (this items involves the expectations placed on employees but not the treatment of those employees or the actual ethical behavior of the supervisor); My supervisor sets an example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics (this item directly deals with the ethical behaviors exhibited by the supervisor). SMEs with formal I-O training may be able to parse the differences among these very similar leader behavior items; however, it is unlikely that the typical worker would make such fine-grained distinctions. Instead, workers may respond to these items based on their overall, general evaluation of the extent to which their supervisor behaves ethically. As a result, ostensibly distinct constructs may often display empirical redundancy.

This raises an important question: Why would I-O researchers make construct distinctions that members of the lay public wouldn’t make? As we noted earlier, researchers and journals are often both rewarded (in the form of high citation counts) for publishing papers that introduce “new” constructs – including “new” constructs that are very similar to existing ones. This incentive system, therefore, encourages the promulgation of small construct distinctions. And once small construct distinctions appear in the literature, researchers may be primed to notice them. People who are unfamiliar with the I-O psychology literature, in contrast, are unlikely to make small distinctions between similar constructs. They simply haven’t been primed to do so.

Measurement error

When a new construct is proposed, researchers should be most interested in the construct-level relationships between it and other similar, existing constructs. When researchers fail to account for measurement error, they may draw incorrect conclusions about the relationships between constructs and, therefore, incorrect conclusions about the theoretical frameworks that include those constructs. Because measurement error generally attenuates the relationship between observed scores on measures, the presence of measurement error may create the illusion that a construct is empirically distinct from an existing construct, when it is in fact redundant. Measurement error, in fact, may cause researchers to tolerate the prolonged existence of an apparently “unique” construct that is in fact redundant with one or more existing constructs. Other researchers have provided detailed guidelines and examples of how to simultaneously account for all types of measurement error, a topic we revisit in our recommendations section. For methodological details and examples, we refer interested readers to Le et al. (Reference Le, Schmidt and Putka2009, Reference Le, Schmidt, Harter and Lauver2010) and Le and Pan (Reference Le and Pan2021).

The natural arc in the development of a “new” construct

The natural arc in the development of an ostensibly “new” construct may also contribute to construct proliferation. When a construct is first introduced, researchers may have good reason to believe that it is indeed distinct from existing constructs (see Newman et al., Reference Newman, Harrison, Carpenter and Rariden2016). An initial factor analysis, for instance, may suggest that items assessing the new construct load onto one factor, whereas items assessing an existing construct load onto a second factor. Subsequent research, however, may show that the “new” construct is largely redundant with the existing construct. There a several reasons why subsequent research may contradict initial findings. The initial research, for instance, may have omitted an existing construct that subsequent research shows is redundant with the ostensibly “new” construct.

The zeitgeist effect

Construct proliferation may also occur when a general zeitgeist independently inspires different research teams to introduce similar constructs (see Gergen, Reference Gergen1973). The abundance of several conceptually similar workplace aggression constructs, for instance, may be a product of this zeitgeist phenomenon (for reviews of the abundance of similar workplace aggression constructs, see Bowling et al., Reference Bowling, Camus, Blackmore, Perrewé, Halbesleben and Rosen2015; Dhanani & Bogart, Reference Dhanani and Bogartin Press; Hershcovis, Reference Hershcovis2011). Around the year 2000, various research teams introduced several workplace aggression constructs including “abusive supervision” (Tepper, Reference Tepper2000), “workplace incivility” (Cortina et al., Reference Cortina, Magley, Williams and Langhout2001), and “social undermining” (Duffy et al., Reference Duffy, Ganster and Pagon2002). Might there be some larger cultural force that caused different research teams to independently propose similar workplace aggression constructs? And might the same cultural force have made journal reviewers receptive to research examining various forms of workplace aggression? One possibility is that a widespread cultural shift toward increased informality (see Andersson & Pearson, Reference Andersson and Pearson1999) may have caused researchers and reviewers to prioritize the publication of research on workplace aggression constructs. And if different research teams simultaneously initiate research on various aggression constructs, then they are likely to be unfamiliar with each other’s work and may thus unknowingly introduce overlapping constructs.

Different disciplines often introduce smilar constructs

Construct proliferation may also occur when one discipline introduces an ostensibly “new” construct that is essentially identical to a construct that already exists within another discipline. This cause of construct proliferation is most likely to occur when entrenched research silos inhibit communication among researchers from different disciplines (Heggestad et al., Reference Heggestad, Voss, Ross, Toth, Banks and Canevello2023; Loignon & Woehr, Reference Loignon and Woehr2018). Loignon and Woehr’s research on social class provides a possible example of this source of construct proliferation. In their literature review, they identified at least 14 constructs subsumed by the general term “social class.” Many of the constructs they reviewed were at least partially redundant (e.g., “social capital” and “cultural capital” may be partially redundant). The fact that social class is studied by researchers from multiple disciplines, including sociology, political science, and I-O psychology, is a possible reason for the abundance of potentially redundant social class constructs.

The positive effects of construct proliferation

First, as we noted above, construct proliferation is likely to occur when researchers initially describe the content space of “new” phenomena (i.e., it is part of the natural arc of construct development). During this early phase, researchers may have only preliminary ideas of what is and what is not part of the construct in question. These preliminary ideas are often refined over time. The five-factor model (FFM) of personality, for instance, came only after decades of work in which multiple researchers introduced many similar personality constructs. Digman (Reference Digman1990) recounted how the initial proliferation of personality constructs was later synthesized into the FFM. He noted how the related constructs “will to achieve,” “dependability,” “task interest,” “superego strength,” “thinking introversion,” “prudence,” “work,” “impulsivity,” “constraint,” and “self-control” were later subsumed by the FFM trait “conscientiousness,” the inclusive FFM label that was adopted by Norman (Reference Norman1963) and McCrae and Costa (Reference McCrae and Costa1987). Subsequent research documented the importance of conscientiousness within work settings. Barrick and Mount (Reference Barrick and Mount1991), for instance, found that conscientiousness was positively related to task performance across all jobs, helping to cement the acceptance of the FFM taxonomy among I-O psychologists. In short, the history of the FFM illustrates how the exploration of personality traits initially produced numerous redundant constructs that helped researchers triangulate distinct constructs that gradually coalesced into the FFM personality factors. The FFM is now one of the most influential and widely accepted models of personality, with the redundant constructs becoming obsolete.

Second, the introduction of ostensibly new constructs can cause researchers to reconsider the content space of an existing construct. It can, in other words, help researchers clarify what is—and what is not—part of a given construct, thus leading to refinement of the definition and assessment of that construct (i.e., improvements in content validity). In some cases, the introduction of a new construct may cause researchers to expand an existing construct’s conceptual space. In other cases, the introduction of a new construct may cause researchers to contract an existing construct’s conceptual space. The introduction of the counterproductive work behavior (CWB) construct, for instance, had a contraction effect on the (existing) organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) construct: Although early conceptualizations of OCB included content reflecting the avoidance of bad behavior (e.g., not taking an excessively long lunch break), researchers have since migrated this content from the OCB construct to the newer CWB construct (see Dalal, Reference Dalal2005).

Furthermore, the introduction of a new construct is sometimes needed to address emerging opportunities and challenges that are relevant within the modern workplace. In many cases, the new construct is an adapted version of an existing construct. The increased prevalence of gig work, for instance, has led to the introduction of new constructs reflecting the perceived fairness of various aspects of algorithmic management systems (see Jabagi et al., Reference Jabagi, Croteau, Audebrand and Marsan2025). These new fairness constructs are adapted from existing organizational justice constructs. Likewise, the growing use of robots, artificial intelligence, and automation has led to the introduction of new constructs that reflect workers’ perceptions that such technology threatens to replace human workers (see Shoss & Ciarlante, Reference Shoss and Ciarlante2022). In this case, these new constructs are based on existing conceptualizations of job insecurity.

Finally, the introduction of ostensibly “new” constructs can generate healthy conflict among researchers. Conflict may occur, for instance, when researchers disagree about whether a new construct is distinct from existing constructs. Researchers should resolve such a conflict by conducting studies that examine the distinctiveness of the new construct. Such research can provide important insights into the nature of both the new and existing constructs. It may, for instance, show that the new construct is either unique or redundant, and it may lead to either the expansion or contraction of the existing construct’s content space. Our field, therefore, should encourage disagreement over constructs because such conflict acts as a catalyst for scientific progress (see Kuhn, Reference Kuhn1962).

The negative effects of construct proliferation

As we briefly mentioned above, the most basic goal of science is to predict and explain phenomena, with those predictions and explanations guiding the development of theoretical propositions that make sense of the world around us. Ideally, scientific theories should be as parsimonious as possible, with more complicated theories and nomological networks used only when necessary. Construct proliferation introduces unnecessary complexity to our theoretical models. If “simple theories are superior to complex ones” (Shaffer et al., Reference Shaffer, DeGeest and Li2016, p. 81), then the net result of construct proliferation is to reduce the quality, validity, and applicability of the predictions and explanations that our field offers. Construct proliferation makes it more difficult for I-O researchers to work together, to build off the work of others, and to accumulate knowledge across studies. Although the problem of construct proliferation affects all disciplines within psychology, some of those negative effects appear to be especially common within I-O psychology. As we mentioned above, the number of constructs included in I-O psychology has more than doubled since 2013 (Anvari et al., 2024). In addition, the field of I-O psychology has been the most fragmented of five psychology subdisciplines (including cognitive, educational and developmental, health and clinical, and personality and social psychology) for over 20 years. It thus appears that despite the attention that I-O researchers have given to construct proliferation, the field continues to move away from parsimony, not toward it.

Beyond the basic goals of science, perhaps the most important purpose of I-O psychology is to develop interventions that improve the well-being and productivity of individual employees and the success of their employers. The presence of construct proliferation, unfortunately, makes it difficult for practitioners to interpret and implement the recommendations provided by I-O researchers, thus causing stakeholders to look elsewhere for solutions to the challenges that their organizations face. Often, these stakeholders will look to solutions that are clearly communicated but are not necessarily supported by theory or empirical evidence. As Rousseau (Reference Rousseau2007) noted, “Organizational science competes in the marketplace for ideas against consultants whose job it is to sell solutions. Can science compete effectively? My answer is, yes, but…Yes, but only when the quality of our research evidence is made more evident to practitioners” (p. 1041). Burgess et al. (Reference Burgess, Brough, Biggs and Hawkes2020) wrote in reference to organizational health psychology (OHP) interventions that “it is evident that published OHP interventions have to date, been largely unsuccessful in demonstrating their long-term effectiveness in reducing the growing costs of occupational stress and well-being” (p. 195). The authors name construct proliferation as one contributing factor to the inability of research to demonstrate convincing effects of OHP interventions. Overall, the presence of construct proliferation reduces the quality of I-O research and the subsequent solutions that we bring to organizations.

Finally, construct proliferation diminishes the overall credibility of I-O psychology. The credibility of psychological science more generally has been disputed for at least 100 years. As early as Reference Stewart1876, Stewart concluded that psychology was not a science but a method, writing that the psychologist “is painfully conscious that mental phenomena are not definite enough to be the objects of a science” (p. 445). Contemporary critics of psychology draw similar conclusions: “That’s right. Psychology isn’t science” (Berezow, Reference Berezow2012). Berezow similarly suggests that, as a field, psychology lacks “clearly defined terminology” and “quantifiability.” The presence of construct proliferation, unfortunately, gives critics further reason to question psychology’s ability to precisely define and measure key constructs. Furthermore, a lack of clear construct definitions and measurement contributes to the current “replication crisis” (Maxwell et al., Reference Maxwell, Lau and Howard2015; Shrout & Rodgers, Reference Shrout and Rodgers2018), which affects not just I-O psychology but all areas of psychology.

Beneficial effects of the proliferation of workplace aggression constructs

The introduction of new constructs has provided researchers with a broader understanding of workplace aggression’s content space, thus leading to novel insights that may have otherwise been omitted from the workplace aggression literature. The addition of abusive supervision, for instance, has led researchers to consider the distinct effects of aggression from different sources (supervisors vs. peers; see Hershcovis & Barling, Reference Hershcovis and Barling2010). Similarly, the addition of workplace ostracism has caused researchers to more fully consider the importance of passive, low-intensity forms of aggression (e.g., the perpetrator ignoring the target employee; see Howard et al., Reference Howard, Cogswell and Smith2020). Without the expansion of the workplace aggression literature beyond the confines of the interpersonal conflict construct, these examples of scientific progress may have never occurred.

Harmful effects of the proliferation of workplace aggression constructs

Although the addition of new constructs has provided researchers with broader insights into the workplace aggression construct’s content space, it has also produced one undesirable effect: the introduction of construct redundancy (see Bowling et al., Reference Bowling, Camus, Blackmore, Perrewé, Halbesleben and Rosen2015; Hershcovis, Reference Hershcovis2011). There is, in fact, extensive evidence that construct redundancy is a serious problem within the workplace aggression literature. First, measures designed to assess ostensibly distinct workplace aggression constructs often share considerable similarity in item content. Items reflecting social isolation, for example, are included in measures corresponding to various forms of workplace aggression, including abusive supervision, bullying, incivility, ostracism, and social undermining (see Bowling et al., Reference Bowling, Camus, Blackmore, Perrewé, Halbesleben and Rosen2015). Furthermore, ostensibly distinct forms of workplace aggression appear to reside within largely the same nomological network. Workplace bullying, incivility, and interpersonal conflict, for instance, are each similarly correlated with a common set of criterion variables (e.g., each aggression construct yields similar-sized negative correlations with job satisfaction, psychological well-being, and physical well-being; see Hershcovis, Reference Hershcovis2011). It appears, therefore, that the workplace aggression literature has needlessly distinguished between largely indistinguishable constructs.

Workplace aggression: A literature in limbo

As we have noted in the previous sections, the proliferation of workplace aggression constructs has produced both beneficial and harmful effects. Workplace aggression researchers, however, have yet to fully capitalize on the opportunities—or resolve the limitations—created by construct proliferation. Fortunately, the path toward progress is clear: Researchers must simply use a set of well-established tools (e.g., item sort tasks, factor analysis) to examine the structure of the workplace aggression construct. Such studies would help researchers identify which construct distinctions they should and should not continue to make. In the absence of such studies, the field will continue to tolerate the presence of redundant workplace aggression constructs.

The fact that researchers have taken few steps toward resolving construct proliferation within the workplace aggression literature is itself noteworthy. As we have already discussed, the existence of construct proliferation within the workplace aggression literature was documented over a decade ago (see Bowling et al., Reference Bowling, Camus, Blackmore, Perrewé, Halbesleben and Rosen2015; Hershcovis, Reference Hershcovis2011), and the tools needed to address this problem are readily available (e.g., factor analysis). Given these facts, why haven’t workplace aggression researchers done more to address construct proliferation? One plausible explanation is that researchers have concluded that attempts to address construct proliferation provide too few rewards while posing too many risks. Our discipline, after all, rewards researchers—often handsomely—for introducing “unique” ideas (Gray & Cooper, Reference Gray and Cooper2010). As a result, researchers may generally focus their collective attention on introducing new constructs. That attention, as a result, is diverted from the synthesis and refinement of existing constructs. Furthermore, those who conduct research examining the redundancy of previously enshrined constructs face professional risks. Such research, after all, could lead to the demise of one or more existing constructs. Researchers, therefore, may often be hesitant to address construct proliferation because they wish to avoid insulting colleagues who are wedded to a given workplace aggression construct.

Specific criteria for papers that propose “new” constructs

Before lifting a moratorium on the introduction of new constructs, journals should create specific criteria that address how prospective authors should examine whether a given focal construct is sufficiently distinct from existing constructs. In keeping with our previous recommendations, such criteria should require researchers to include an inclusive set of competing constructs, include outcome measures, collect data at least two different points in time, use multiple measures for each construct whenever possible (or the split-half method for constructs with only one valid scale as demonstrated in Schmidt et al., Reference Schmidt, Le and Ilies2003), correct fully for measurement error, and replicate their findings across multiple datasets.

Such criteria would serve two primary purposes. First, they would provide authors with guidance in conducting research. Authors could use these criteria to guide their attempts to demonstrate that an ostensibly “new” construct is, in fact, distinct from existing constructs. They could also use these criteria to guide their efforts to challenge the distinctiveness of a “new” construct advanced by other researchers. Second, the criteria could provide reviewers and editors with guidance on judging whether a given submission has effectively tested the distinctiveness of a new construct.

As a starting point, Table 1 provides a list of criteria that we recommend authors use to judge whether they have adequately assessed the uniqueness of an ostensibly new construct they have introduced. (Table 1 can also be used to evaluate whether previously published papers have adequately assessed the uniqueness of a new construct.) We recommend that journals in our field adopt such a checklist and make it open and available to authors, editors, reviewers, and practitioners. Prior to submitting an article that proposes a new construct, authors could indicate whether their paper conforms to the checklist. During the review process, editors and reviewers would also compare the checklist to the paper to confirm alignment. If such a checklist were universally adopted by our journals, then construct proliferation would decrease, and researchers and practitioners could be confident that new constructs had been subjected to adequate scrutiny.

Special issues

We also encourage journals to publish special issues on construct proliferation. Articles included in special issues are often highly cited (Brooks & Della Sala, Reference Brooks and Della Sala2010), so the publication of one or more special issues on construct proliferation may help to further increase our field’s collective awareness of this issue. Furthermore, the publication of special issues would serve as a clear signal that I-O psychologists consider the resolution of instances of construct proliferation to be an institutional priority. Special issues on construct proliferation could take various forms. A journal that publishes papers on substantive I-O topics, for instance, could publish a special issue that examines construct proliferation within one or more topical areas. Depending on the breadth of the journal’s scope, such an issue could include research addressing construct proliferation within a single area (e.g., an occupational health psychology journal could publish a special issue on construct proliferation within the occupational stress literature) or research addressing construct proliferation across various areas (e.g., an I-O journal with an inclusive scope could publish a special issue on construct proliferation across the discipline as a whole).

The editors of a special issue on construct proliferation could encourage the submission of papers resulting from adversarial collaborations (Ceci et al., Reference Ceci, Clark, Jussim and Williamsin Press; Clark & Tetlock, Reference Clark, Tetlock, Frisby, Redding, O’Donohue and Lilienfeld2023). A paper that uses this collaborative approach would include authors who initially have conflicting opinions about the uniqueness of the construct in question (i.e., one or more members of the author team would hypothesize that the construct is unique, whereas other members of the author team would hypothesize that the construct is redundant with existing constructs). In some cases, the editorial team could first identify possible cases of construct redundancy and then recruit specific authors who have expertise in the construct(s) of interest. In other cases, the editorial team could publish a general call for papers asking prospective authors to create adversarial teams. To encourage submissions from adversarial collaborations, the editorial team could offer an in-principal acceptance of any paper resulting from such a collaboration, provided that it satisfies various predetermined criteria, such as the examination of a meaningful instance of possible construct redundancy, the application of multiple tools to test for the presence of construct proliferation, and the inclusion of multiple datasets, causally identified nomological networks, and the preregistration of their study.

Publishing replications

To help identify and eliminate unnecessary constructs, our journals must adjust their standards for evaluating replication studies. When a given journal publishes a paper that introduces a new construct, that journal should be open to publishing subsequent challenges to the distinctiveness of that construct. Unfortunately, replications are rarely published in our most prestigious journals (for an exception, see the award-winning paper by Obenauer et al., Reference Obenauer, Sieweke, Bastardoz, Arvate, Gazdag and Hentschel2024, as well as an entire special issue on replications, see Carsten et al., Reference Carsten, Clapp-Smith, Haslam, Bastardoz, Gooty, Connelly and Spain2023). If a journal publishes an article that introduces a “new” construct, it is unlikely that the same journal would later publish an article showing that the “new” construct is redundant with a previously existing one. As a result, the introduction of an unnecessary construct can be difficult to correct.

Journals currently demand that replication studies provide a meaningful theoretical contribution. Contributing to theory is important, but not when it comes at the expense of comprehensive replication, self-correction, and parsimony—all of which hallmarks of good science. In the context of construct proliferation, methodologically sound empirical testing may be even more important than novel theoretical contributions. Practitioners are interested in solutions, and the consultants with which I-O researchers compete do so based on practical results and not theory. If a strong theoretical contribution is imposed as a prerequisite to the self-correction processes, then we risk placing ourselves at a significant disadvantage within the marketplace of ideas.

Graduate program curricula initiatives

Graduate training can provide novice I-O researchers with the knowledge, skills, and professional values needed to address the construct proliferation dilemma. Formal coursework should play an important role. Research methods and statistics courses should demonstrate how various tools that are generally familiar to I-O psychologists, such as content validation tasks (see Woznyj et al., Reference Woznyj, Banks, Whelpley, Batchelor and Bosco2022, Studies 1 and 2), can be used to develop construct measures that are unique from others. Graduate programs should also provide a holistic understanding of the impact of measurement error on construct relationships – including approaches to address measurement error, such as the disattenuation formula and factor analysis. Likewise, instructors of content courses should assign research articles that discuss construct proliferation broadly (e.g., Harter & Schmidt, Reference Harter and Schmidt2008) and within specific topical areas (e.g., Banks et al., Reference Banks, Gooty, Ross, Williams and Harrington2018; Hershcovis, Reference Hershcovis2011; Woznyj et al., Reference Woznyj, Banks, Whelpley, Batchelor and Bosco2022). Reading these and other papers that examine construct proliferation within a particular topical area could inspire students to consider possible instances of construct redundancy within other research areas, and these articles could serve as models for students to draw from if they later decide to pursue research on construct proliferation.

Formal coursework, however, is not the only possible means through which students could learn about construct proliferation. They could, for example, also learn about it via their program’s recurring speaker series, while studying for their comprehensive exams, or while working on research projects with faculty or other graduate students. Ideally, a graduate program would use repetition to inculcate within its students an appreciation for the challenges and opportunities posed by construct proliferation. This may require that a graduate program address construct proliferation by covering it within multiple venues. In our view, graduate students should be taught to be vigilant about construct proliferation in much the same way they are taught to be vigilant about common-method bias or about the limitations of drawing causal inferences from nonexperimental data. The Advancement of Replications Initiative in Management (ARIM; www.arimweb.org) provides one opportunity to help promote such efforts.