USP Pro includes an option to override the default Post Author with the name of the person who submitted the post. This post is a quick summary of the WordPress functions that are affected by this option.
About the “Replace Author” setting
The Replace Author setting is located under USP Pro ▸ General ▸ “User Settings”. It enables you to always use the submitted author name, regardless of any other settings. When including the “Name” field on a USP Form, enable this setting to always use it as the Post Author.
Example usage: when user-registration is disabled, this setting enables the user to specify their own author name.
When enabled, this setting overrides the following functions/tags:
Author
the_author_meta('display_name');
get_the_author_meta();
get_the_author();
the_author();
URL
get_author_posts_url(get_the_author_meta('ID'));
get_the_author_meta('user_url');
the_author_meta('user_url');
Both: Author and URL
the_author_posts_link();
get_the_author_link();
the_author_link();
Moral of the story: if your theme uses any of these standard WP tags to display Author/URL in the Post Loop, their output will be replaced with submitted values (when Replace Author is enabled).