A new paper published in European Science Editing highlights the growing psychological strain on researchers driven by pressure to obtain statistically significant results in academic publishing.

Drawing on a decade of experience as an editor and statistical reviewer, Michał Ordak, an Assistant Professor at the Medical University of Warsaw, reveals how institutional, supervisory, and editorial expectations contribute to emotional distress, especially among young scholars striving to meet perceived standards of publishability.

“Between 2015 and 2025, concerns about statistical significance became a recurring theme in author responses during peer review and presubmission communication,” said Ordak. “Authors increasingly expressed fear that using appropriate statistical methods would lead to non-significant findings and reduce their chances of publication.”

This anxiety persists despite a general understanding of statistical principles among researchers. Indeed, the pressure is not due to ignorance, but to visible institutional demands and a belief that publication relies on statistically significant results.

“Requests to adjust methods purely to obtain significant outcomes have become more frequent and emotionally charged, even when such changes compromise analytical rigour,” Ordak notes. “The pursuit of significance is no longer just a technical issue, but a psychological burden that shapes behaviour, distorts judgement, and affects mental well-being.”

The pressure is particularly pronounced among PhD students and early-career researchers, who often rely on statistically significant outcomes to secure publications, funding, and careers.

Ordak describes how editorial feedback is sometimes perceived as a threat rather than an opportunity for scientific rigour, leading some researchers to justify flawed analytical choices based solely on whether the results are statistically significant.

Critical reforms are needed to counter the problem, he suggests: “Editorial teams can help mitigate this anxiety by providing guidance on sound statistical reasoning... and by reassuring authors that rigorous methods are valued regardless of outcome.”

He urges widespread adoption of standards such as the SAMPL (Statistical Analyses and Methods in the Published Literature) guidelines, which remain underused in practice.

Original source

Ordak M (2025) The psychological burden of statistical significance: editorial reflections from 2015 to 2025. European Science Editing 51: e164741. https://doi.org/10.3897/ese.2025.e164741