US studies may overestimate effect sizes in softer research
US studies may overestimate effect sizes in softer research
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1302997110
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发表时间：
2013-09-10
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Ioannidis, John P. A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fanelli, Daniele;Ioannidis, John P. A.
许多偏见影响科学研究，造成资源浪费，对人类健康构成威胁，阻碍科学进步。这些问题被假设为由于缺乏对理论和方法的共识，选择性的出版过程，以及过于注重生产力的职业系统，如美国（US）所采用的职业系统，而恶化。在这里，我们提取了1,174个主要结果，这些结果出现在82个荟萃分析中，这些荟萃分析发表在从Web of Science类别遗传学和遗传学以及精神病学中抽样的健康相关生物学和行为研究中，并测量了个体结果如何偏离各自荟萃分析中的总体汇总效应量。我们发现，其结果包括行为参数的主要研究通常更有可能报告极端效应，而那些作者在美国的研究更有可能偏离其实验假设预测的方向，特别是当其结果不包括其他生物参数时。非行为研究显示没有这种“美国效应”，主要受抽样方差和小规模研究效应的影响，这在非美国国家更强。虽然后一项发现可以解释为对非美国作者的出版偏见，但在行为研究中观察到的美国效应不太可能由编辑偏见产生。行为研究具有较低的方法论共识和较高的噪音，使美国研究人员更有可能表达一种潜在的倾向，即报告强有力的重要发现。
Many biases affect scientific research, causing a waste of resources, posing a threat to human health, and hampering scientific progress. These problems are hypothesized to be worsened by lack of consensus on theories and methods, by selective publication processes, and by career systems too heavily oriented toward productivity, such as those adopted in the United States (US). Here, we extracted 1,174 primary outcomes appearing in 82 meta-analyses published in health-related biological and behavioral research sampled from the Web of Science categories Genetics & Heredity and Psychiatry and measured how individual results deviated from the overall summary effect size within their respective meta-analysis. We found that primary studies whose outcome included behavioral parameters were generally more likely to report extreme effects, and those with a corresponding author based in the US were more likely to deviate in the direction predicted by their experimental hypotheses, particularly when their outcome did not include additional biological parameters. Nonbehavioral studies showed no such "US effect" and were subject mainly to sampling variance and small-study effects, which were stronger for non-US countries. Although this latter finding could be interpreted as a publication bias against non-US authors, the US effect observed in behavioral research is unlikely to be generated by editorial biases. Behavioral studies have lower methodological consensus and higher noise, making US researchers potentially more likely to express an underlying propensity to report strong and significant findings.