[disgruntledphd2]

Conditional on being published, this is true. Hence studies of the file-drawer effect and what not.

More generally, scientists are incentivised to find novel findings (i.e. unexpectedly low p-values) or lose their job.

Given that, the plot doesn't surprise me at all (Also, people will normally not report a bunch of non-significant results, which is a similar but unrelated problem).

[eru]

That's part of why pre-registration of studies is so important.