Measuring the Prevalence of Questionable Research Practices With Incentives for Truth Telling

Cases of clear scientific misconduct have received significant media attention recently, but less flagrantly questionable research practices may be more prevalent and, ultimately, more damaging to the academic enterprise. Using an anonymous elicitation format supplemented by incentives for honest re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychological science Vol. 23; no. 5; pp. 524 - 532
Main Authors John, Leslie K., Loewenstein, George, Prelec, Drazen
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.05.2012
Sage Publications
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Bleeding time
Correlations
Credibility
Data analysis
Data Collection
Estimate reliability
Estimation
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
Geometric mean
Humans
Judgement
Measurement
Methodology
Motivation
Psychological research
Psychologists
Psychology
Psychology - standards
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychometrics
Research - standards
Research fraud
Research methods
Scientific Misconduct - statistics & numerical data
Truth
Truth Disclosure
Validity
disclosure
professional standards
judgment
methodology
Human
Incentive
Ethics
Methodology
Professional practice
Psychology
Scientific research
Self disclosure
Epidemiology
Judgment
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Summary:Cases of clear scientific misconduct have received significant media attention recently, but less flagrantly questionable research practices may be more prevalent and, ultimately, more damaging to the academic enterprise. Using an anonymous elicitation format supplemented by incentives for honest reporting, we surveyed over 2,000 psychologists about their involvement in questionable research practices. The impact of truth-telling incentives on self-admissions of questionable research practices was positive, and this impact was greater for practices that respondents judged to be less defensible. Combining three different estimation methods, we found that the percentage of respondents who have engaged in questionable practices was surprisingly high. This finding suggests that some questionable practices may constitute the prevailing research norm.
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ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797611430953