Prof studying honesty fabricates findings

[Langue_doc]

Harvard Scholar Who Studies Honesty Is Accused of Fabricating Findings
Questions about a widely cited paper are the latest to be raised about methods used in behavioral research.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/24/business/economy/francesca-gino-harvard-dishonesty.html

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Ha!

[lightning]

One of the drawbacks of doing research in areas that will get a lot of attention, is your research gets a lot of attention.

[Wahoo Redux]

Well, here you have a business prof touting business research to business people and telling business people what they want to hear about improving their business practices.  Sounds like regular business to me.

And then there is this irony on top of irony.  The title says it all: Rebel Talent (her company): Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

Actually, I feel a little sorry for Gino.  The pressure to do amazing things must be intense at the Harvard Biz School, much more than for most academics.  Reminds me of when one young woman on our prom court in high school stuffed the ballot boxes for prom queen and then got caught.  It was written up in the school newspaper against the teacher's directive to leave this already humiliated student alone.

[Parasaurolophus]

Reminds me of this fun little study about ethicists (or would-be ethicists) stealing  ethics books from libraries. There was a popular write-up here.

[apl68]

Reminds me of this fun little study about ethicists (or would-be ethicists) stealing  ethics books from libraries. There was a popular write-up here.

Or the story in our state some years back about the community where books on theology were being stolen from churches, etc.  Turned out the thief, when caught, was building his own personal theology library at everybody else's expense.  Lots of head-knowledge, no practical application.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Well, here you have a business prof touting business research to business people and telling business people what they want to hear about improving their business practices.  Sounds like regular business to me.

And then there is this irony on top of irony.  The title says it all: Rebel Talent (her company): Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

Actually, I feel a little sorry for Gino.  The pressure to do amazing things must be intense at the Harvard Biz School, much more than for most academics.  Reminds me of when one young woman on our prom court in high school stuffed the ballot boxes for prom queen and then got caught.  It was written up in the school newspaper against the teacher's directive to leave this already humiliated student alone.

Uhh I can't wait for the New York Times to write a fawning piece about her along these lines, blaming the people who exposed the fraud instead of the fraudster who scammed her way to a top position and many thousands of dollars worth of consulting opportunities (along these lines like they did with Amy Cuddy).

[marshwiggle]

Well, here you have a business prof touting business research to business people and telling business people what they want to hear about improving their business practices.  Sounds like regular business to me.

And then there is this irony on top of irony.  The title says it all: Rebel Talent (her company): Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

Hey! Now she can write another book, with a title like: "Why it Sometimes Doesn't Pay to Break the Rules  at Work and in Life". It would very much fit in the "celebrity apology" genre.

[Wahoo Redux]

Well, here you have a business prof touting business research to business people and telling business people what they want to hear about improving their business practices.  Sounds like regular business to me.

And then there is this irony on top of irony.  The title says it all: Rebel Talent (her company): Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

Hey! Now she can write another book, with a title like: "Why it Sometimes Doesn't Pay to Break the Rules  at Work and in Life". It would very much fit in the "celebrity apology" genre.

Or maybe, "Why You Have to Be Smarter Than the Other Researchers When You Sometimes Break the Rules at Work and Life."

[ab_grp]

Well, here you have a business prof touting business research to business people and telling business people what they want to hear about improving their business practices.  Sounds like regular business to me.

And then there is this irony on top of irony.  The title says it all: Rebel Talent (her company): Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

Actually, I feel a little sorry for Gino.  The pressure to do amazing things must be intense at the Harvard Biz School, much more than for most academics.  Reminds me of when one young woman on our prom court in high school stuffed the ballot boxes for prom queen and then got caught.  It was written up in the school newspaper against the teacher's directive to leave this already humiliated student alone.

Uhh I can't wait for the New York Times to write a fawning piece about her along these lines, blaming the people who exposed the fraud instead of the fraudster who scammed her way to a top position and many thousands of dollars worth of consulting opportunities (along these lines like they did with Amy Cuddy).

Yep.  There was near-immediate pushback online from other researchers who are apparently sick of these witch hunts and the glee that the Data Thugs and Data Colada get from their investigations (I'm paraphrasing).  I don't really understand this perspective.  The folks who are clearly manipulating data to achieve publishable results are getting funding (and all the positive consequences down the road from that) that others may now not have the opportunity to receive.  I mean, aside from the idea that it's wrong to manipulate data, analyses, and findings, this would seem to be a solid reason to heap scorn on the perps.  So why is there a backlash against the rise of this new industry of sorts that looks at findings that are too good to be true, seem way out of range of typical effect sizes, cannot be replicated or reproduced, do not adhere to common sense, do not match researchers' previous experience with the data, etc.? There are various types of fraud occurring, so it makes sense to me that different ways of looking for fraud are also being developed and put into practice. 

I haven't seen a convincing explanation of why the data forensics folks are the problematic ones here rather than the researchers building careers on a bunch of BS.

[Puget]

Well, here you have a business prof touting business research to business people and telling business people what they want to hear about improving their business practices.  Sounds like regular business to me.

And then there is this irony on top of irony.  The title says it all: Rebel Talent (her company): Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

Actually, I feel a little sorry for Gino.  The pressure to do amazing things must be intense at the Harvard Biz School, much more than for most academics.  Reminds me of when one young woman on our prom court in high school stuffed the ballot boxes for prom queen and then got caught.  It was written up in the school newspaper against the teacher's directive to leave this already humiliated student alone.

Uhh I can't wait for the New York Times to write a fawning piece about her along these lines, blaming the people who exposed the fraud instead of the fraudster who scammed her way to a top position and many thousands of dollars worth of consulting opportunities (along these lines like they did with Amy Cuddy).

Yep.  There was near-immediate pushback online from other researchers who are apparently sick of these witch hunts and the glee that the Data Thugs and Data Colada get from their investigations (I'm paraphrasing).  I don't really understand this perspective.  The folks who are clearly manipulating data to achieve publishable results are getting funding (and all the positive consequences down the road from that) that others may now not have the opportunity to receive.  I mean, aside from the idea that it's wrong to manipulate data, analyses, and findings, this would seem to be a solid reason to heap scorn on the perps.  So why is there a backlash against the rise of this new industry of sorts that looks at findings that are too good to be true, seem way out of range of typical effect sizes, cannot be replicated or reproduced, do not adhere to common sense, do not match researchers' previous experience with the data, etc.? There are various types of fraud occurring, so it makes sense to me that different ways of looking for fraud are also being developed and put into practice. 

I haven't seen a convincing explanation of why the data forensics folks are the problematic ones here rather than the researchers building careers on a bunch of BS.

I think this backlash pretty clearly is from a small minority of people in the field however, and at least from what I saw on psych Twitter (may not be a representative sample), even they were not saying that fraud was OK or shouldn't be investigated, they just thought the university investigation process should have playing out privately. That said, I (and most other people I saw commenting) strongly disagree with this--I'm all for publicly exposing fraud because science depends fundamentally on trust so the social sections for violating it need to be really, really high. I have zero sympathy for someone who made a ton of profit off her fraud (>400k salary, plus very high speaking and consulting fees and book sales), and did potentially irreparable repetitional harm to collaborators (especially early career researchers) in the process. I hope she's sued by those she's defrauded and harmed, and if she obtained grants based on fraudulent data I think criminal charges are completely warranted.

Of course, in many cases there are also severe harms from applying false results to real-world policies or treatments, but in this case the research is honestly just silly and pretty meaningless in the first place (e.g., arguing against your own viewpoints makes you rate cleaning products higher because you supposedly feel "contaminated"). I'm more worried about the fraud we aren't catching in more important areas, like clinical trials.   

[Sun_Worshiper]

Well, here you have a business prof touting business research to business people and telling business people what they want to hear about improving their business practices.  Sounds like regular business to me.

And then there is this irony on top of irony.  The title says it all: Rebel Talent (her company): Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

Actually, I feel a little sorry for Gino.  The pressure to do amazing things must be intense at the Harvard Biz School, much more than for most academics.  Reminds me of when one young woman on our prom court in high school stuffed the ballot boxes for prom queen and then got caught.  It was written up in the school newspaper against the teacher's directive to leave this already humiliated student alone.

Uhh I can't wait for the New York Times to write a fawning piece about her along these lines, blaming the people who exposed the fraud instead of the fraudster who scammed her way to a top position and many thousands of dollars worth of consulting opportunities (along these lines like they did with Amy Cuddy).

Yep.  There was near-immediate pushback online from other researchers who are apparently sick of these witch hunts and the glee that the Data Thugs and Data Colada get from their investigations (I'm paraphrasing).  I don't really understand this perspective.  The folks who are clearly manipulating data to achieve publishable results are getting funding (and all the positive consequences down the road from that) that others may now not have the opportunity to receive.  I mean, aside from the idea that it's wrong to manipulate data, analyses, and findings, this would seem to be a solid reason to heap scorn on the perps.  So why is there a backlash against the rise of this new industry of sorts that looks at findings that are too good to be true, seem way out of range of typical effect sizes, cannot be replicated or reproduced, do not adhere to common sense, do not match researchers' previous experience with the data, etc.? There are various types of fraud occurring, so it makes sense to me that different ways of looking for fraud are also being developed and put into practice. 

I haven't seen a convincing explanation of why the data forensics folks are the problematic ones here rather than the researchers building careers on a bunch of BS.

I think this backlash pretty clearly is from a small minority of people in the field however, and at least from what I saw on psych Twitter (may not be a representative sample), even they were not saying that fraud was OK or shouldn't be investigated, they just thought the university investigation process should have playing out privately. That said, I (and most other people I saw commenting) strongly disagree with this--I'm all for publicly exposing fraud because science depends fundamentally on trust so the social sections for violating it need to be really, really high. I have zero sympathy for someone who made a ton of profit off her fraud (>400k salary, plus very high speaking and consulting fees and book sales), and did potentially irreparable repetitional harm to collaborators (especially early career researchers) in the process. I hope she's sued by those she's defrauded and harmed, and if she obtained grants based on fraudulent data I think criminal charges are completely warranted.

Of course, in many cases there are also severe harms from applying false results to real-world policies or treatments, but in this case the research is honestly just silly and pretty meaningless in the first place (e.g., arguing against your own viewpoints makes you rate cleaning products higher because you supposedly feel "contaminated"). I'm more worried about the fraud we aren't catching in more important areas, like clinical trials. 

Wow I can't believe someone thought this was interesting or important enough to conduct a study on, let alone to fabricate results. Shame on the journal that published this, even putting the fraud aside.

[Wahoo Redux]

She was trying to do research which would be appealing to corporate interests which they could then use to market themselves better and write contracts more beneficial to themselves. 

[marshwiggle]

Well, here you have a business prof touting business research to business people and telling business people what they want to hear about improving their business practices.  Sounds like regular business to me.

And then there is this irony on top of irony.  The title says it all: Rebel Talent (her company): Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

Actually, I feel a little sorry for Gino.  The pressure to do amazing things must be intense at the Harvard Biz School, much more than for most academics.  Reminds me of when one young woman on our prom court in high school stuffed the ballot boxes for prom queen and then got caught.  It was written up in the school newspaper against the teacher's directive to leave this already humiliated student alone.

Uhh I can't wait for the New York Times to write a fawning piece about her along these lines, blaming the people who exposed the fraud instead of the fraudster who scammed her way to a top position and many thousands of dollars worth of consulting opportunities (along these lines like they did with Amy Cuddy).

Yep.  There was near-immediate pushback online from other researchers who are apparently sick of these witch hunts and the glee that the Data Thugs and Data Colada get from their investigations (I'm paraphrasing).  I don't really understand this perspective.  The folks who are clearly manipulating data to achieve publishable results are getting funding (and all the positive consequences down the road from that) that others may now not have the opportunity to receive.  I mean, aside from the idea that it's wrong to manipulate data, analyses, and findings, this would seem to be a solid reason to heap scorn on the perps.  So why is there a backlash against the rise of this new industry of sorts that looks at findings that are too good to be true, seem way out of range of typical effect sizes, cannot be replicated or reproduced, do not adhere to common sense, do not match researchers' previous experience with the data, etc.? There are various types of fraud occurring, so it makes sense to me that different ways of looking for fraud are also being developed and put into practice. 

I haven't seen a convincing explanation of why the data forensics folks are the problematic ones here rather than the researchers building careers on a bunch of BS.

I think this backlash pretty clearly is from a small minority of people in the field however, and at least from what I saw on psych Twitter (may not be a representative sample), even they were not saying that fraud was OK or shouldn't be investigated, they just thought the university investigation process should have playing out privately.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the pushback is from the "activist" types, whose research has an agenda before it starts, so that "wherever the data may lead" is not the overarching goal. That type of "research" is going to be very easy to challenge, because all kinds of things like sampling bias, lack of control groups, etc. are common when the result is decided upon before the data are collected. And so, if people are prone to this, if they're going to get called on it they want it to be as low-key and privately as possible.

[Puget]

Wow I can't believe someone thought this was interesting or important enough to conduct a study on, let alone to fabricate results. Shame on the journal that published this, even putting the fraud aside.

A lot of biz school psych research is like this. The crazy thing is psychologists in biz schools get paid something on the order of 4x those in traditional A&S psych departments to do this crap, and corporations apparently eat it up (her advertised speaking fees *started* at 50k). Perhaps relatedly, these fraud scandals have disproportionately involved biz school faculty.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the pushback is from the "activist" types, whose research has an agenda before it starts, so that "wherever the data may lead" is not the overarching goal. That type of "research" is going to be very easy to challenge, because all kinds of things like sampling bias, lack of control groups, etc. are common when the result is decided upon before the data are collected. And so, if people are prone to this, if they're going to get called on it they want it to be as low-key and privately as possible.

Of course *you* wouldn't be surprised because that would conform nicely to *your* preconceived ideas. But nope, this has nothing to do with ideology-- did you not note that this is a biz school prof publishing silly things that corporations nonetheless seem to love? Again, I don't agree with the pushback, but it is all about due process and tone, nothing to do with the actual research.