A retracted paper on dishonesty is now reportedly...even more dishonest
An already-retracted study by some of the world’s most prominent behavioral economists may be even more flawed than previously known.
Nearly two years ago at BuzzFeed News (R.I.P.!!), I wrote about a high-profile study, published in 2012, that was about honesty. Its five authors had reported on three experiments that all showed that signing an honesty pledge at the top of a form (instead of at the bottom, as one normally does) meant you were less likely to lie on the form. And the paper was being retracted. The reason was newly discovered fraudulent data in Experiment #3, which had been done by two of the five authors. Dan Ariely of Duke University, who oversaw the collection of that data, told me at the time that he was innocent.
Even as someone who’d covered the unraveling of quite a few splashy behavioral-economics findings, I found the irony of this one painfully enormous.
But the irony, it turns out, runs even deeper than I thought. Because there were other experiments in that paper, done by the three other co-authors — and Experiment #1 may not be so solid, either, as I wrote today in The Chronicle of Higher Education (free to read if you make an account with your email):
[Max Bazerman, a professor at Harvard Business School] told The Chronicle that on Tuesday, Harvard informed him that it believed fabricated data for this experiment made it invalid. According to Bazerman, Harvard provided a 14-page document with what he described as “compelling evidence” of data alterations. Their analysis found that somebody had accessed a database and added and altered data in the file, he said. “I did not have anything to do with the fabrication,” he told The Chronicle.
According to Bazerman, Harvard is recommending to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that it update the study’s retraction notice to reflect its new concerns. (A journal spokesperson said, “We are looking into the matter.” A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment.)
The experiment in question had been written up by Bazerman, Lisa Shu (then of Northwestern University), and Francesca Gino. Gino, I also report in this story, is a world-renowned Harvard Business School professor who studies dishonesty, and went on on administrative leave within the last month, according to her faculty page. Gino did not return a request for comment for my story, nor did Shu.
What I reported today may be just one piece of a bigger problem, the scope of which will hopefully become clearer soon.
Bazerman told The Chronicle that his understanding is that the 2012 paper is one of four papers “of significant concern” to Harvard. He declined to identify the other three, but said he was not a co-author on them.
So stay tuned. (And if you have tips, please get in touch.)
Dishonesty is pretty sticky.