Psychology › Schools & history › The replication crisis
Open science: preregistration and registered reports
Since 2013· Concept
Well replicatedStrong, repeated evidence.
Reforms that make research transparent: registering plans in advance, publishing regardless of results, and sharing data openly.
See it on the Psychology map →What it says
Preregistration means posting the hypothesis, sample size and analysis plan publicly before collecting data. Registered reports go further: a journal reviews and accepts the study design before results exist, so null findings get published too; the journal Cortex launched them in 2013. Brian Nosek and Jeffrey Spies founded the Center for Open Science that year. Add shared data and code, larger samples, and multi-lab collaborations pooling thousands of participants across many countries.
Why it matters
It attacks the crisis's causes, p-hacking and publication bias, not just its symptoms. Similar rules are spreading across sciences; medicine has required clinical-trial registration since 2005.
Think of it like
Like setting underwriting criteria before seeing a deal, so the numbers cannot be bent to fit a decision already made.
The evidence
Status: well replicated. A 2021 study found 44% of registered reports supported their hypotheses, versus 96% of standard papers: strong evidence the usual literature was filtered toward positive results.
Open questions
Whether it is raising replication rates over time; audits find many preregistrations are vague or quietly not followed.
Connections (2)
▸Open science: preregistration and registered reports is the main response to The replication crisisWell replicated
The connection
Open science targets the crisis's causes. Preregistration ties researchers' hands before data arrive; registered reports remove the bias toward positive results; shared data lets others check the work; and large multi-lab studies supply the statistical power that small studies lacked.
Who showed it and when
Since 2011–2013: the Center for Open Science (Charlottesville, 2013), registered reports at Cortex (2013) and later hundreds of journals, and the Many Labs collaborations.
The evidence
Measurable shifts: registered reports confirm hypotheses far less often than standard papers, and journal badges for open data sharply increased data sharing.
Open questions
Whether reforms raise replication rates. In an irony, a 2023 paper reporting high replicability with these practices was retracted in 2024 over doubts about its own preregistration.
▸Open science: preregistration and registered reports guards against P-hacking and 'false-positive psychology'Well replicated
The connection
P-hacking needs freedom to try analyses after seeing the data. Preregistration removes that freedom by fixing the sample size, measures and analysis in a public, time-stamped record; later changes must be disclosed, so readers can tell confirmed predictions from after-the-fact exploration.
Who showed it and when
The 2011 'False-Positive Psychology' paper proposed disclosure rules; its authors launched the AsPredicted registry in 2015, alongside the Open Science Framework registry.
The evidence
Comparisons show preregistered studies report fewer positive results and smaller effects, consistent with less p-hacking.
Open questions
Audits find many preregistrations are vague and some deviations go unreported; how much preregistration actually prevents remains under study.