Neither our nor W&H's simulations take into account what we consider major sources of bias in science, namely researcher's own aspirations and expectations in conducting studies, analyzing the data, and reporting of the results. The colloquial notion of “disappointing results” renders actual science notably more complex. Researchers conduct studies with a clear expectation about the results and are not immune to confirmation bias. Moreover, most high-impact journals specifically select for novel results and are commonly believed to select studies predominantly on the basis of statistical significance [32]. The incentives associated with publishing novel and statistically significant research in high-impact journals may lead to strategic behaviors of researchers [33]. Researchers' bias and strategic behavior together with journals' preference for specific results produces published studies that typically overestimate effect size and are likely not a good representation of all conducted studies.
