1997/12/01 by Harris Cooper, Kristina DeNeve, Kelly Charlton · 1 voice · 3 citations
Arts and Humanities · Decision Sciences · Social Sciences · #Academic Writing and Publishing #Delphi Technique in Research #Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
paper · doi:10.1037/1082-989x.2.4.447
openalex publication_date 1997/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Publication bias, including prejudice against the null hypothesis, and other biasing filters may operate on researchers as well as journal editors and reviewers. A survey asked 33 psychology researchers to describe the fate of 159 studies approved by their departmental human subjects review committee. About two thirds of completed studies did not result in published summaries. About half of the unpublished studies fell out of the process for reasons other than methodological quality. Among these, lack of interest and aims that did not include publication were cited more often than nonsignificant results as the reasons why publication was not pursued. However, significant findings were more likely than nonsignificant findings to be submitted for meeting presentation or publication. These results indicate attention needs to be paid to improving how psychological scientists communicate, especially to the creation of prospective research registers.