Getting the whole story: journals could be more encouraging

Even though replication is a cornerstone of the scientific method, psychology journals rarely publish direct replications (though that situation may be changing).  Why not?  Is it self-censorship, with authors not bothering to conduct or submit such studies?  Or is it that the journals discourage replications?

Here’s a paper with some answers: Martin & Clark, 2017

The authors scanned the editorial guidelines of over 1000 psychology journals, flagging any mention of replication.  The found that only 3% explicitly encourage replication papers.  What about the other journals?  Two thirds didn’t mention replications at all, 33% seemed to implicitly discourage replications, and 1% explicitly discouraged replications. Yikes!

The times they are a changing, but there’s still a long way to go:

References:

Martin, G. N., & Clarke, R. M. (2017). Are Psychology Journals Anti-replication? A Snapshot of Editorial Practices. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(April), 523. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00523