Science is self-correcting, or so the adage goes, but to what extent is that indeed the case? Answering this question requires careful consideration of the various approaches to achieve the collective goal of self-correction. One of the most straightforward mechanisms is individual self-correction: researchers rectifying their own mistakes by publishing a correction notice. Although it offers an efficient route to correcting the scientific record, it has received little to no attention from a metascientific point of view. We aim to fill this void by analysing the content of correction notices published from 2010 until 2018 in the three psychology journals featuring the highest number of corrections over that timespan based on the Scopus database (i.e. Psychological Science with N = 58, Frontiers in Psychology with N = 99 and Journal of Affective Disorders with N = 57). More concretely, we examined which aspects of the original papers were affected (e.g. hypotheses, data-analyses, metadata such as author order, affiliations, funding information etc.) as well as the perceived implications for the papers’ main findings. Our exploratory analyses showed that many corrections involved inconsequential errors. Furthermore, authors rarely revised their conclusions, even though several corrections concerned changes to the results. We conclude with a discussion of current policies, and suggest ways to improve upon the present situation by (i) preventing mistakes, and (ii) transparently rectifying those mistakes that do find their way into the literature.

俗话说，科学是自我修正的，但事实在多大程度上确实如此呢？回答这个问题需要仔细考虑实现自我纠正的集体目标的各种方法。最直接的机制之一是个人自我纠正：研究人员通过发布纠正通知来纠正自己的错误。尽管它提供了纠正科学记录的有效途径，但从元科学的角度来看，它几乎没有受到任何关注。我们的目标是通过分析 2010 年至 2018 年在这三本心理学期刊上发表的更正通知的内容来填补这一空白，这三本心理学期刊基于 Scopus 数据库（即 N = 58 的Psychology Science 、 N = 58的Psychology Science 、 N = 58 的 Psychology Science、 N = 58的 Psychology Science 、 N = 99，《情感障碍杂志》 N = 57）。更具体地说，我们检查了原始论文的哪些方面受到影响（例如假设、数据分析、作者顺序、从属关系、资金信息等元数据）以及论文主要发现的感知影响。我们的探索性分析表明，许多更正涉及无关紧要的错误。此外，作者很少修改他们的结论，尽管有几次更正涉及结果的变化。最后，我们讨论了当前的政策，并提出了改善现状的方法，方法是（i）防止错误，（ii）透明地纠正那些确实出现在文献中的错误。