It likely is, but this is also an outgrowth of the "explorer" sort of mindset where people juts see themselves as diving into the unknown to see what they find. It's not malicious, but it could contribute to p hacking for sure
The explorer mindset is how scientists discovered penicillin, x-rays, and vulcanized rubber. Science isn't as cut and dry as the scientific method suggests.
I'd say to the extent that this behavior contributes to the reproducibility crisis, it has more to do with not backing that exploration with rigorous experimentation.
But more to the point, I'd argue that the lack of funding and publish-or-perish atmosphere has more to do with it. Academics don't necessarily publish because the results are noteworthy, but because they have to, regardless of the robustness of their methodology.
That's absolutely true as well, and in my reply above I wasn't contesting that, just contemplating what the poster above that mentioned about p hacking, how maybe this mindset makes it easier as a justification? But yeah we should never just discard the importance of exploration for the sake of it, it's how we also got crucial technologies like current PCR tools - some guy just really wanted to see what was up with those Yellowstone bacteria and found all sorts of heat stable compounds. That rigorous follow-up is super important though as you stated
