Maziarz, Mariusz (2026) Will preregistration solve the replication crisis? Preregistration, p-hacking, and pre-hacked novelty games. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Preregistration is one of the main methodological innovations aimed at mitigating the replication crisis. To some extent, preregistration decreases publication bias and constrains researcher degrees of freedom, thereby lessening the suppression of null findings and making p-hacking more difficult. However, preregistration neither changes the incentive structure of today’s science nor makes results less fragile. I argue that even an ideal preregistration that fully limits researcher degrees of freedom will not mitigate the replication crisis because researchers may engage in preregistered p-hacking (pre-hacking) and pursue different forking paths to report results that disagree with the existing literature, thereby improving their chances of publication in reputable journals.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Maziarz, Mariusz mariusz.maziarz@uj.edu.pl 0000-0003-1979-0746
Additional Information:	This article has been accepted for presentation at the PSA 2026 in San Diego.
Keywords:	preregistration, p-hacking, replication crisis, researcher degrees of freedom,
Subjects:	General Issues > Data Specific Sciences > Medicine > Clinical Trials General Issues > Experimentation Specific Sciences > Medicine
Depositing User:	Mr Mariusz Maziarz
Date Deposited:	28 May 2026 11:26
Last Modified:	28 May 2026 11:26
Item ID:	29772
Subjects:	General Issues > Data Specific Sciences > Medicine > Clinical Trials General Issues > Experimentation Specific Sciences > Medicine
Date:	2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/29772

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