Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23980165›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2013

US studies may overestimate effect sizes in softer research.

Daniele Fanelli, John P A Ioannidis

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
51citing papers in PubMed, 10 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

51 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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  7. Meta-assessment of bias in science.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017
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  18. Dynamics of cross-platform attention to retracted papers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Daniele FanelliScience, Technology and Innovation Studies, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH1 1LZ, United Kingdom.
John P A Ioannidis

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Many biases affect scientific research, causing a waste of resources, posing a threat to human health, and hampering scientific progress. These problems are hypothesized to be worsened by lack of consensus on theories and methods, by selective publication processes, and by career systems too heavily oriented toward productivity, such as those adopted in the United States (US). Here, we extracted 1,174 primary outcomes appearing in 82 meta-analyses published in health-related biological and behavioral research sampled from the Web of Science categories Genetics & Heredity and Psychiatry and measured how individual results deviated from the overall summary effect size within their respective meta-analysis. We found that primary studies whose outcome included behavioral parameters were generally more likely to report extreme effects, and those with a corresponding author based in the US were more likely to deviate in the direction predicted by their experimental hypotheses, particularly when their outcome did not include additional biological parameters. Nonbehavioral studies showed no such "US effect" and were subject mainly to sampling variance and small-study effects, which were stronger for non-US countries. Although this latter finding could be interpreted as a publication bias against non-US authors, the US effect observed in behavioral research is unlikely to be generated by editorial biases. Behavioral studies have lower methodological consensus and higher noise, making US researchers potentially more likely to express an underlying propensity to report strong and significant findings.

Indexed as

PublishingBehavioral ResearchBiomedical ResearchEditorial PoliciesHumansMeta-Analysis as TopicPublication BiasUnited Statespublish or perishquestionable research practicesresearch biasscientific misconductsoft science

Identifiers

PMID23980165
PMCPMC3773789

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
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Registered trials

None linked

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.