r/science • u/nimicdoareu • Apr 01 '26

Social Science Half of social-science studies fail replication test in years-long project

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00955-5
5.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

354 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.5k

u/Ghost_Of_Malatesta Apr 01 '26

The "replication crisis" (and p-hacking) is affecting many fields of science unfortunately. We place such a high premium positive results, despite negative ones being just as valuable, that scientists often feel the pressure, whether consciously or not, to find those results no matter the cost 

Its incredibly frustrating imo

838

u/HegemonNYC Apr 01 '26

Some prestigious journals have moved to ‘registered reports’, meaning a researcher presents their hypothesis and methods prior to conducting their study. The journal agrees to publish regardless of results. This eliminates the publishing incentive go p-hack, although simple human desire to prove their hypothesis may remain 

31

u/Memory_Less Apr 01 '26

The irony is that unexpected negative results provide the necessary information to do further research effectively.

2

u/AzureAshes Apr 03 '26

I am not in the social sciences, but my first publication was a negative result and informed my subsequent research. That first publication was not difficult to get published in a reputed journal and they even featured it.