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positive-outcome (publication) bias

Positive-outcome (or "publication") bias is the tendency to publish research with a positive outcome more frequently than research with a negative outcome. Negative outcome refers to finding nothing of statistical significance or causal consequence, not to finding that something affects us negatively.

Positive-outcome bias also refers to the tendency of the media to publish medical study stories with positive outcomes much more frequently than such stories with negative outcomes. Media bias may be due to scientific journal bias, but the latter seems to be due mainly to researchers not submitting negative outcome studies for publication (the file-drawer effect), rather than to bias on the part of publication or peer review editors.

further reading

• Publication Bias: The “File-Drawer” Problem in Scientific Inference by Jeffrey D. Scargle. Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 91–106, 2000.
• Publication bias: the problem that won't go away by K. Dickersin and Min YI
• The existence of publication bias and risk factors for its occurrence by KDickersin
• Publication bias: evidence of delayed publication in a cohort study of clinical research projects  by Jerome M Stern and R John Simes
• Positive-Outcome Bias and Other Limitations in the Outcome of Research Abstracts Submitted to a Scientific Meeting by Michael L. Callaham, MD; Robert L. Wears, MD; Ellen J. Weber, MD; Christopher Barton, MD; Gary Young, MD
• Bias against negative studies in newspaper reports of medical research by G. Koren and N. Klein
• Publication Bias: The “File-Drawer” Problem in Scientific Inference by Jeffrey D. Scargle

Easterbrook PJ, Berlin JA, Gopalan R, Matthews DR. "Publication bias in clinical research," Lancet. 1991;337:867-872.

Moscati R, Jehle D, Ellis D, Fiorello A, Landi M. "Positive-outcome bias: comparison of emergency medicine and general medicine literatures," Acad Emerg Med. 1994;1:267-271.

Ponzi scheme

post hoc fallacy