The role of results in deciding to publish

Publishing study results in scientific journals has been the standard way of disseminating science. However, getting results published may depend on their statistical significance. The consequence of this is that the representation of scientific knowledge might be biased. This type of bias has been called publication bias. In the present study, we make an attempt to get more insight into publication bias by examining it at the author, reviewer, and editor level. Additionally, we make a direct comparison between publication bias induced by authors, by reviewers, and by editors. Our findings suggest that statistically significant findings have a higher likelihood to be published than statistically non-significant findings, because (1) authors are more likely to write up and submit articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results; (2) reviewers give more favourable reviews to articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results; and (3) editors are more likely to accept for publication articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results. Evidence on differences in the relative contributions to publication bias by authors, reviewers, and editors is ambiguous.