Citation

de Winter JCF, Happee R. PLoS One 2013; 8(6): e66463.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0066463

PMID

unavailable

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.

Language: en

Keywords

Heart; Medical journals; Medicine and health sciences; Mental health and psychiatry; Metaanalysis; Psychology; Replication studies; Scientific publishing