ArticlePloS one2013
Why selective publication of statistically significant results can be effective.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Why are medical and health-related studies not being published? A systematic review of reasons given by investigators.PloS one · 2014Pooled it
- Publication bias is bad for science if not necessarily scientists.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Reproducibility in the Social Sciences.Annual review of sociology · 2022Article
- Competition for priority harms the reliability of science, but reforms can help.Nature human behaviour · 2021Article
- When we can trust computers (and when we can't).Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2021Article
- A theory and methodology to quantify knowledge.Royal Society open science · 2019Article
- Article
- Simple changes of individual studies can improve the reproducibility of the biomedical scientific process as a whole.PloS one · 2018Article
- Concealing research outcomes: Missing data, negative results and missed publications.Indian journal of anaesthesia · 2017Article
- Article
- Retro-priming, priming, and double testing: psi and replication in a test-retest design.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2014Article
- Why publishing everything is more effective than selective publishing of statistically significant results.PloS one · 2014Article
- Report the awful truth!Nature nanotechnology · 2013Article
- Optimization of cellular ELISA for assay of surface antigens on human synoviocytes.BioTechniques · 1997Article
- Is positive publication bias really a bias, or an intentionally created discrimination toward negative results?Saudi journal of anaesthesiaReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Concerns exist within the medical and psychological sciences that many published research findings are not replicable. Guidelines accordingly recommend that the file drawer effect should be eliminated and that statistical significance should not be a criterion in the decision to submit and publish scientific results. By means of a simulation study, we show that selectively publishing effects that differ significantly from the cumulative meta-analytic effect evokes the Proteus phenomenon of poorly replicable and alternating findings. However, the simulation also shows that the selective publication approach yields a scientific record that is content rich as compared to publishing everything, in the sense that fewer publications are needed for obtaining an accurate meta-analytic estimation of the true effect. We conclude that, under the assumption of self-correcting science, the file drawer effect can be beneficial for the scientific collective.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.