Registered Reports should become the default publication format in empirical psychology, replacing standard peer review as the norm rather than the exception.

The replication crisis persists because the academic publishing system rewards novelty and positive findings. Voluntary reforms like preregistration are routinely circumvented. Registered Reports restructure the incentive by decoupling the publication decision from the results, which empirically eliminates the positive-result inflation that drives non-replicability. This is a classic structural solution to a social dilemma: when individual incentives conflict with collective welfare, you change the rules rather than appealing to individual virtue.

• Voluntary preregistration is insufficient because compliance is poor: 72% of preregistered studies deviate from their plans, and 68% have undisclosed deviations, undermining the transparency preregistration was designed to provide.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  Torka et al. (2025) Going off script, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology

  72% of preregistered studies deviated at least once; 68% had undisclosed deviations.

  https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joop.70057
• Structural problems require structural solutions: motivational interventions (exhorting researchers to behave better) have a poor track record in social dilemmas, whereas structural interventions that change the rules of the game can align individual incentives with collective welfare.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  The replication crisis as a social dilemma for early-career researchers (2015)

  Applies Messick & Brewer's distinction between structural and motivational solutions to social dilemmas, arguing the replication crisis requires coordinated structural reform.

  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4527093/
• Empirical evidence demonstrates that Registered Reports dramatically reduce the inflated positive-result rate: standard reports show 96% positive results versus only 44% in Registered Reports, a gap that measures the extent of selective reporting in conventional publishing.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  Scheel, Schijen & Lakens (2021) An Excess of Positive Results, AMPPS

  Found 96% positive results in standard reports versus 44% in Registered Reports across psychology.

  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/25152459211007467
• The replication crisis is primarily a structural incentive problem — publication bias, p-hacking, and questionable research practices are driven by a system that rewards positive results — not a problem of individual researcher dishonesty.
  Evidence for this premise (2)

  Replicability-Index: Replication Crisis (2026)

  Central empirical problems remain: unusually high rates of statistically significant results, implausible success rates given typical power, and repeated failures to reproduce headline findings.

  https://replicationindex.com/category/replication-crisis/

  Zhao (2026) Systemic forces in the replication crisis, Nature Reviews Psychology

  Identifies systemic and institutional forces rather than individual failings as the drivers of replication failure.

  https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-025-00529-8
• Registered Reports eliminate publication bias by design — peer review and the acceptance decision occur before results are known — which removes the incentive to selectively report or p-hack.

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