Generalization across people is not fundamental to basic research: Reply to Kroupin et al. (2025)

This is a reply to the commentary Kroupin et al. (2025) offered in response to my article on generalizability in basic research (Sherman, 2025). In their response, Kroupin et al. assert that cultural moderation enjoys special status among the many potential moderators of human psychology and behavior. They propose that cultural universality should be a default and explicit assumption of psychological theory until proven otherwise and that testing that generalizability is fundamental to psychological research. In reply, I again assert that, for many types of basic research, that is simply not the case, with other potential moderators playing a more substantial role. I also challenge the assertion that the primary function of basic research is to provide existence proofs of behavioral outcomes, arguing that theory testing, whether via existence proofs or other types of research, is the primary goal of basic research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).