How publishing works in this field
Preregistration and registered reports are now mainstream here. A registered report is reviewed on the question and the design before data collection, and accepted in principle regardless of how the results come out, which removes the incentive that produced the original problem. Where a journal offers it, it is often the strongest route for a study that might yield a null result.
Reporting expectations are specific: effect sizes with confidence intervals rather than p-values alone, a justification for the sample size rather than a convenient number, and a statement of what was excluded and why. APA style governs much of the field, and its guidance on statistics reporting is more prescriptive than most authors assume.
What slows papers down here
Underpowered designs are the most common substantive rejection. A study with too few participants to detect the effect it claims to test cannot be rescued at review, which is why the sample-size justification belongs in the design stage and in the paper.
Undisclosed flexibility is the other. Reviewers increasingly ask directly whether all measures, conditions and exclusions are reported, and an answer that emerges only under questioning damages a paper more than the flexibility itself would have.
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Questions we are asked in this field
Not universally, but an unregistered study is now read more sceptically in this field, and some journals require registration or an explanation of its absence. Preregistration does not prevent exploratory analysis — it requires you to label it as exploratory.
A two-stage format: the question, design and analysis plan are peer reviewed before data collection, and in-principle acceptance follows the design rather than the result. It protects studies whose findings may be null, and is offered by a growing number of behavioural journals.
Increasingly yes, or state why not. Many journals require a data availability statement and some require deposit in a repository. Ethical restrictions on participant data are a legitimate reason, and the statement should say so specifically rather than generically.