Gino Data Scandal in Behavioral Sciences and Research Misconduct

Allegations of fraud recently hit the behavioral sciences when an independent research team published a series of papers detailing data manipulation evident in no fewer than four prominent papers in the field. Ironically, these papers describe research on morality and integrity, and so far the blame has been laid at the feet of one of the authors all these papers have in common: Harvard professor Francesca Gino. ing.

Although the paper has since been retracted after the allegations were flatly denied, it is not without disagreement and controversy. Although the university published its own investigation into the claims before placing Dr. Gino on administrative leave, she was contacted by the university and her original paper’s authors, researchers Leif Nelson, Joe Simmons, and Uri Simonsson. filed a lawsuit against them. Since then, the trio, with the help of her friends, have been crowdfunding to pay for her legal defense.

The outbreak of this scandal has raised many questions, from the simple question of Dr. Gino’s guilt to the more complex question of where the field of behavioral science itself is headed. But underlying it all is an older and more familiar question: Why does cheating happen?

What are the consequences of cheating?

Outright fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and some of their more benign variations constitute a narrative almost as old as scientific research itself. From the Piltdown Man scandal of 1912 (a fraud attempt to bridge the missing link between primates and humans) to more recent cases such as the Diederik Stäpel scandal, there have been varying degrees of evidence in various fields. After all, scientific misconduct has always existed and continues to exist.

Even if the scope of a single act of misconduct is small, it can have dire consequences for scientists and their fields, especially if the perpetrator is a leader in the field. One of his ways of identifying a leader is by the extent to which that person’s work builds on the work of others. This is especially true for Dr. Gino.

Many other papers and findings free of wrongdoing that rely on the original but flawed research will also be called into question, putting years of work at risk.

Why do researchers commit fraud?

There is some consensus that the main causes of fraud today are existing incentive structures for researchers and flaws in peer review and replication studies.

Researchers have many incentives from funders, editors, and academic institutions to pursue more breakthrough discoveries and results that support alternative hypotheses. Flashier results can raise the profile of the researchers who acquire them, make them and their employers more famous, and allow funders to claim a good return. However, the flip side of the coin is that the size of these incentives may have encouraged many researchers to conduct research that was sloppy at best and completely fabricated at worst.

Some experts support the idea that incentive structures, manifested as pressures to publish, influence researchers’ motivation. They also blame the low risk of detection due to the leadership style of reviewers and research supervisors as a possible motive for misconduct. Others blame cultural norms surrounding criticism and the lack or incompleteness of policies at the national or institutional level to punish misconduct.

How should we deal with fraud?

One emerging response to the challenge of addressing fraud is the Open Science Framework (OSF) to ensure scientific integrity. Promote practices such as preregistration (i.e., agreeing to revise a study’s hypotheses, methods, and analyzes before conducting the study, and to share whatever results there may be) and facilitating access to research data. Masu.

Therefore, OSF has sought to reduce the amount of fraud by subjecting both researchers’ original intentions and the final data to scrutiny. The team behind OSF has also launched the more ambitious Codifying the Trustworthiness of Open Research and Evidence (SCORE) project. The project seeks to increase the credibility of research by developing automated tools that generate “rapid, scalable, and accurate credibility scores for research claims.” .

However, OSF still requires institutions and researchers to comply so that it can effectively eliminate fraud. Although SCORE can circumvent this barrier, it also has its own drawbacks, such as the risk of non-critical use. all at once To assess the “credibility” of scientists – the developers of SCORE say this is not their use case.

Additionally, methods for dealing with fraud exist on both small and large scales, but may not be consistent across organizations. As a result, researchers willing to cooperate still face significant “informal” punishment. Alternatively, independent researchers, like the three researchers who reported concerns about Dr. Gino’s co-authored papers, would be at risk of: Facing costly litigation.

What are the systemic causes of fraud?

Less novel ways to combat incidents of misconduct include providing sufficient funding and reducing pressure on researchers, supporting replication studies (i.e., studies that check the results of other studies), and checking for misconduct. There are “detectives” who are encouraged to do this.

For example, setting aside a portion of an approved grant for research into quality control activities can go a long way in combating fraud. Researchers can use these resources to conduct investigations more thoroughly and quickly, which may increase young scientists’ confidence in the system. Similarly, providing financial support for replication studies, such as in the form of cash rewards, may also be helpful.

Whether science can thwart fraud and the police depends, in part, on the choices of individual researchers. Whether it’s the temptation to be a little less rigorous when reviewing results, or the values ​​you give to those you teach, the willingness to stick to scientific norms, regardless of the impact it has on your own future, ultimately determines how widespread the fraud will be.

What is the role of scientific publishing?

It states that beyond research institutions and academia, the structure of scientific publishing is also implicated in the perpetuation of research misconduct. In particular, many journals, as well as funders, prefer to publish sensational results and are reluctant to investigate or correct signs of misconduct in published papers.

Recently, for example, Nature The company retracted a paper it published last year after independent researchers reported that the data were inconsistent. However, the journal did not explain how it got permission to publish the paper in the first place.

What can and should scientists do?

Some scientists are doing the right thing. In the absence of a similar institutional effort, many of Dr. Gino’s co-authors are working with Dr. Gino to distinguish between “good” and “bad” papers, rather than allowing all papers. We decided to investigate the studies that provided data. It is necessary to apply tar with the same brush.

That said, scientists recognize a much-needed rethinking of scientific methods and norms, especially by those in power. The common imagination of science is that it is always rigorous and self-correcting, but this is naive and unrealistic.

The modern scientific process needs to be strengthened by incentives for inquiry into technology and scientific inquiry itself, which should become standard practice rather than requiring “special” circumstances.

Abhishek V. is a research assistant at the Pandit Prayogshala Department of Economics, Mumbai.