The Story of Two Scientists Who Were Dishonest in Their Research

I’m not sure, but I think humanity is a dishonesty There is a problem. One of the common goals everywhere, from social sciences to religious beliefs, from spiritual teachings to personal development studies, is to make people more honest.

If there was no such problem, no one would probably try to solve a problem that does not exist. Well, one of the largest academic studies on honesty What would you think if I told you that he was not honest at all?

Meet the investigator of integrity:

Dan Ariely Our story, which begins with the academician named, begins with his comic book origin. Ariely, who participated in the movements of a youth organization in his youth, burned most of his face and body in one of those movements and remained in hospitals for years.

During this period, he thinks about how far the nurses in the hospital are from patient psychology, and when he recovers, he begins to receive psychology training. Afterwards, he received his doctorate in cognitive psychology and his doctorate in business administration, and then at MIT. on honesty begins his work.

His conclusion is this: “Man, if given the opportunity, to protect his own interests cheats.“This trick has its limits, but the trick itself is not completely eliminated. People also inhibit themselves because they want to see themselves as good people.

The work in which he first made his name known is “The dishonesty of honest people” is an article called “. Here he gives an exam and tells the students that you should think about yourself. you will grade.

He says to half the class, “Remember the Ten Commandments before grading.”, to the remaining half in terms of morality I give an ineffective task, I dismiss it “Think about your favorite food.” he says. Then the students are given the opportunity to cheat and observations are made.

So what’s the result? People who think about food give themselves high scores and cheat when they have the opportunity. It’s not like that either, They give themselves 50 percent higher marks.

What about the rest? Oh, they ethical But please, do they ever do such things? They are grateful. There is zero cheating. This article more than 3700 received a quote.

So is this Ariely’s only problem?

So, once you do this test, you may encounter a similar result. same test with larger sample If you do it, for example, if you try it in 50 classes, you will find better results.

There is already such a thing as p-value, and in your research this p-value It needs to be below 0.05, meaning you are at least 95 percent confident in your findings. Ariely does not do a single work, but his rise and fall do not occur independently of this work.

As we said, Ariely conducts research on honesty, with an insurance company undertakes a work of honesty. According to the study, people firstThe information I gave is correct.” ticking the boxes, then unchecking them much more honest It allows us to get answers.

These boxes are at the top of the form “Oh, I won’t lie.” He writes down the number of kilometers they actually traveled. Those who fill out the forms with boxes at the bottom are “Let me write less mileage, let me pay less insurance.Because it is logical that they It gets tighter and tighter.

The problem of honesty solved for free Ariely explains this study everywhere, but does not share the data with anyone. Due to his fame, no one tries to repeat these experiments. (The overly scientific justification for this situation is generally the lack of resources for research.)

Meanwhile, isn’t Ariely giving TED talks, writing books, or traveling on television? million dollars continues to recover.

Isn’t anyone telling this man to stop?

At first, Ariely is quite comfortable, but over time, she begins to attract attention. After a while, he came across biggest rival It turns out: Brian Nosek. Nosek is the king, Nosek is the big man, Nosek is the one who doesn’t hesitate to go after sloppy research. Many Labs founder of the project.

Their aim is to test 100 of the most sensational studies. Although the 100 studies that Many Labs tested in the first stage were conducted in collaboration with the original researchers, only 36% It turns out to be repeatable. The results obtained in them do not have as great an impact as in the articles. These rates may vary from area to area.

Anyway, Nosak “The reproducibility crisisAfter creating the crisis called “”, he begins to re-do Ariely’s research. Ten Commandments The study on the subject, not repeated, gives results in the opposite direction.

Ariely tooOkay, but I did not collect the data in the first study, this professor from this university collected it.” he says, but shouldn’t that teacher also come out and say “We work like this we didn’twouldn’t I know?Then the correspondence between Ariely and this esteemed person comes to light.

Ariely constantly e-mails the professor, “What was the name of the researcher in that study, where was his data?“, drives the woman crazy. Meanwhile mouth to change does not neglect “We collected the data there but processed it at MIT” he starts to say. The assistant is not around, of course. In the end, only the article was withdrawn because there was nothing proven.

Anyway, in the meantime, a new character opens in our story. If this is our character Francesca Gino.

He is also a star and a researcher who came from Italy and got into Harvard. The two come together The situation becomes even more dramatic when they work in the same field.

While honesty increased by 10% in Ariely’s field work, the rate of lying decreased from 80% to 30% in our sister Gino’s studies with students; The size of the lie is also getting smaller, as the public say It is thrown small so that the chicks can eat it too.

Gino and Ariely’s research is of course subsequently tested, but the results never support the papers’ findings. This raises suspicions.

Taking out eyes while doing eyebrows!

In fact, Gino and Ariely, along with other researchers, came together after the controversy over honesty studies. a larger study They do more and they say “Yes, those effects were not very real, but look, we are such royal people that we accept our mistakes, we are officially such brand people in honesty.”

The point they forget is The data from the first studies are now available. It is understood that the more honest group in the insurance experiment consists of people who drive less anyway, while those in the other group drive at least twice as much.

When asked about this situation, Ariely said:What if methodological Its been a mistake” Under normal circumstances, groups with similar characteristics should be established in such experiments. This is like comparing the lungs of 20-year-old smokers with the lungs of 94-year-old non-smokers and saying, “Look how tobacco products open up their lungs.”

Besides Because there is no proven fraud These people kept their chairs, continued their work, only one or two of their articles lost their importance, and their reputation suffered a little, but these were not such a big deal for people who earned a few million dollars a year.

The thrones of star academicians are shaking.

When the data from Gino and Ariely’s first studies emerged, a doctoral student became obsessed with this duo and studied the data for a long time. As he examines it, he finds other problems. What they found was a research program founded by three young professors who were tired of false data. Data Colada He shares it with the organization called.

In Ariely’s data two inconsistencies there is. First, while under normal circumstances we should see a bell curve-style graph in such a study, Ariely’s research shows a similar number of people using vehicles in all categories, such as milk cartons on the supermarket shelf.

Second, someone to you or meHow many kilometers have you traveled by car/public transport this year? If he asks a question, we will give a round answer. People here are like The tachometer seems to be attached to itself They wrote kilometers down to the last digit.

Data Colada after reviewing this article the data is fake He wrote an article in his defense. The researchers did not object at all, even saying “Well done, you found it.saying ” They retracted the article. While Ariely blames the company, the company tries to distance itself from the situation by saying that they did not use this study and that it was of no use.

There is another inconsistency in the data they give when they are tired of being constantly accused; The company conducted the study for only 6 thousand cars, but in Ariely’s data 20 thousand cars It is located.

Worse, when these figures are examined, the results turn out to be exactly the opposite. Ariely said to his friend who discovered this situation, ““Dude, I accidentally changed the names of the columns, if you change them it will come out right.” says. Meanwhile, it’s no longer his fault to the insurance company He can’t because the guys are warning him, “If you say anything to us again, we will take you to court.” saying.

Ariely “Maybe someone on my team tampered with the data.” but according to the metadata, it’s the username of the user who last edited the data. danariely. In other words, someone may have secretly entered the gentleman’s computer and added data that would strengthen his research. Let us also remind you that we are talking about almost 2.5 times the normal data.

In every subsequent examination Ariely, came to the fore with his rants. In one of them, in a study he conducted, dentists “by lying to get more money” he accused.

The mistake here is It was the source of one of the largest dental insurance networks in the country. When the company asks this “As someone there said, I don’t have any data.” He tried to argue, calling what he called work a sensation. The company even denied this “No, we did not collect such data..” and struck a blow. Then he said, “Who did you talk to?” they asked, but Ariely doesn’t remember that either.

Didn’t you say it’s over? Unfinished!

It doesn’t end. On top of all this disgrace, Ariely found funding from the state. honesty in academic work begins to examine. And with Francesca Gino by his side. As this extremely ironic work begins, Gino and Ariely’s vulnerabilities continue to be found.

public reaction, Speaking of investigations, Gino has been suspended, and Ariely teaches at Duke University, but his investigation continues.

While all this was going on, Ariely and Gino famous and rich They continue to live as We have no choice but to see that even the most important names in the field go and make up myths. Moreover, if these studies had not been examined, we would not have been able to see that there was something inconsistent unless they themselves said so.

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