Registered Reports as the default pathway for confirmatory publication
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: By rewarding speed, volume, and coherent positive narratives, traditional publishing incentivizes questionable scientific practices and analytic flexibility. The latter especially contributes to blurring the distinction between exploration and confirmation, which inflates the apparent strength of confirmatory claims. This systemic issue has gone unchecked for decades, leaving the scientific community with a body of scholarly literature that is unreliable and lacking validity. Registered Reports (RRs) address problematic publishing practices by requiring a priori registration of confirmatory tests, which is peer-reviewed before the research begins (stage 1). The editorial acceptance of a stage 1 plan establishes a commitment to publication regardless of research outcomes. Publication remains, nonetheless, contingent on a second peer review and editorial scrutiny (stage 2) to verify that the approved plan was followed, all deviations were transparently disclosed and justified, confirmatory and exploratory claims are clearly delineated, and the integrity of the design was maintained. Meta-scientific comparisons indicate that RRs reduce outcome-based publication bias and improve methodological rigor without compromising perceived novelty. By making accepted RR protocols and their review history citable research outputs, RRs also strengthen recognition for peer-review work. In this perspective, we argue that RRs should become the primary mode of confirmatory publication moving forward.
Source: PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Authors: CRISTINA LASTRES-LÓPEZ, Marina Bazhydai, Pablo Ezequiel Flores-Kanter, James Steele, Pierrick Laulan, Sarahanne Field, Jaroslaw Roman Lelonkiewicz, Stephan Nebe, Niv Reggev, Zhang Chen, Giulia Mattavelli, Claudio Tennie, David Vaidis, Robert D McIntosh, Bianca de Haan, Julia Schnepf, William Leo Donald Krenzer, Lilla Nora Kovacs, Gidon T. Frischkorn, Giulia Liberati, Erin Macartney, Mateo Leganes-Fonteneau, Anthony Harris, Gemma Learmonth, Madeleine Pownall, Thomas Rhys Evans, Marietta Papadatou-Pastou, Leonardo Alexandre Peyré-Tartaruga, Katherine Moore, Louis Moses, Chhavi Sachdeva, Zhicheng Lin, Vishnu Sreekumar, Benoit Pujol, Hansika Kapoor, Margaret Jane Moore, Daniel J. Dunleavy, Victoria B. Fendel, Marta Topor, David A. Neequaye, Benedetta Franceschiello, Juan David Leongómez, Alexandra Masciantonio, Francisco J. Parada, Moin Syed, Yuki Yamada, Grace Edwards, Thiago Leiros Costa, Zoltan Dienes, Helena Hartmann, Céline Provins, Mahmoud Elsherif, Chris Chambers, Adrien Fillon, Anoushiravan Zahedi, Jon Haitz Legarreta Gorroño, Giacomo Guidali, Julien Mayor, Donald Lynam, Mark T. Young, Anna K Porter, Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, Birgit Szabo, Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Tobias R. Rebholz, Patrick E. Savage, Hugo Najberg, Tamara Kalandadze, Antica Culina, Charlotte Rebecca Pennington, Marlene Wiart, Luis Eudave, Mariam Olugbodi, Marieke K. van Vugt, Valeria Mazza, Eduardo S. A. Santos, Ana Belen Ramos Hryb, Mario Dalmaso, Erick Turner, Lobna Hassan, Yikang Zhang, Hu Chuan-Peng, Oscar Esteban, Clare Conry-Murray, Sarah Fiona Schoch, Joshua S. Bamford, Alejandra Rossi, Russell A. Poldrack
Language: English
Subfield: Library and Information Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222910963