Allegations of fraud hit the behavioural sciences recently when a team of independent investigators published a series of articles detailing apparent data manipulation in more than four prominent papers in the field. Ironically, the papers described studies of morality and honesty, and so far, the accusations have landed at the feet of one author common to all these papers, Harvard University professor Francesca Gino.
Since the allegations were levelled, the papers have been retracted, but not without disagreement and controversy. While the university floated its own investigation into the claims before it placed Dr. Gino on administrative leave, she filed cases against the university and the authors of the original articles – researchers Leif Nelson, Joe Simmons, and Uri Simonsohn. Since then, with help from its peers, the trio has crowd-funded money to pay for its legal defence.
The rise of this scandal has spawned many questions – from the simpler one of Dr. Gino’s guilt to the more involved one of where it will leave the field of behavioural sciences itself. But underlying them all is an older, more familiar one: why does misconduct happen?
