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The ‘file drawer problem’ refers to the fact that in science, many results remain unpublished – especially negative ones. This is a problem because it produces publication bias.
Now, a group of Belgian psychology researchers have decided to make a stand. In a bold move against publication bias, they’ve thrown open their own file drawer. In the new paper, Anthony Lane and colleagues from the Université catholique de Louvain say that they’ve realized that over the years, “our publication portfolio has become less and less representative of our actual findings”. Therefore, they “decided to get these [unpublished] studies out of our drawer and encourage other laboratories to do the same.”
Lane et al.’s research focus is oxytocin, the much-discussed “love hormone”. Their lab has published a number of papers reporting that an intranasal spray of oxytocin alters human behaviour. But they now reveal that they also tried to publish numerous negative findings, yet these null results remain in the file drawer because they weren’t accepted for publication.
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In my view this is a very important paper, and a brave move by the authors. This kind of revelation of what goes on “behind closed drawers” could be an effective remedy for publication bias. I suspect though that prevention is better than cure, and that the best way to keep the file drawers from filling up in the first place will be to reform the scientific process itself.
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