Evidence that nonsignificant results are sometimes preferred: Reverse P-hacking or selective reporting?

Pierre J C Chuard, Milan Vrtílek, Megan L Head and Michael D Jennions

PLOS Biology, 2019, vol. 17, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: There is increased concern about poor scientific practices arising from an excessive focus on P-values. Two particularly worrisome practices are selective reporting of significant results and ‘P-hacking’. The latter is the manipulation of data collection, usage, or analyses to obtain statistically significant outcomes. Here, we introduce the novel, to our knowledge, concepts of selective reporting of nonsignificant results and ‘reverse P-hacking’ whereby researchers ensure that tests produce a nonsignificant result. We test whether these practices occur in experiments in which researchers randomly assign subjects to treatment and control groups to minimise differences in confounding variables that might affect the focal outcome. By chance alone, 5% of tests for a group difference in confounding variables should yield a significant result (P

Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pbio00:3000127

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000127

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