[ramblingrain]

I would like to suggest that the general sentiment here is true in some other modern scientific disciplines. In other words, I don't think it's because psychology is transitioning to a more formal scientific approach that causes these difficulties. I think it has to do with a misalignment of incentives in the present academic world, and the difficulty of the statistical inference framework.

These problems of reproducibility occur in basic cancer research articles as well. Amgen proved this and wrote a paper detailing issues [1].

Academics are valued for their papers, citations and grants. And papers are difficult to publish if one fails to find an effect. The researcher has some incentive to find the right numbers because their job is, in a way, on the line.

There's lots of writing about the tension between "publish or perish" [2] and scientific integrity. It manifests in p-values often, but p-values are the dominant statistical tool right now in most fields. I think you will see the same tension regardless of your tools for doing science.

[1] Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish