File Drawer Effect
The file drawer effect, or file drawer problem, is that many studies in a given area of research may be conducted but never reported, and those that are not reported may on average report different results from those that are reported. An extreme scenario is that a given null hypothesis of interest is in fact true, i.e. the association being studied does not exist, but the 5% of studies that by chance show a statistically significant result are published, while the remaining 95% where the null hypothesis was not rejected languish in researchers' file drawers. Even a small number of studies lost "in the file drawer" can result in a significant bias. The term "file drawer problem" was coined by the psychologist Robert Rosenthal in 1979.
Read more about this topic: Publication Bias
Famous quotes containing the words file drawer, file, drawer and/or effect:
“I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “Science Fiction” ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)
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—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
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—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)