The Call of the Finding

Some are worried that psychologists have become addicted to sound-bite results.

Written byJef Akst

| 2 min read

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Over the last few months, the news about one of the biggest cases of scientific fraud in recent memory—affecting more than 100 published research papers and resulting in the firing of Diderik Stapel from his post as the head of the Institute for Behavioral Economics Research at Tilburg University—has unfolded bit by bit, shocking the scientific community. Now the discussion is moving beyond the Stapel and overt data falsification and focusing on less obvious, even unintentional, examples of data misuse in the field of social psychology, which some worry are becoming increasingly common.

"If high-impact journals want this kind of surprising finding, then there is pressure on researchers to come up with this stuff," methodological expert Eric-Jan Wagenmakers of the University of Amsterdam told The ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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