Two more retractions for Diederik Stapel, his 33rd and 34th, by our count.
The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, which has been a frequent subject of Retraction Watch posts recently, has retracted “Similarities and differences between the impact of traits and expectancies: What matters is whether the target stimulus is ambiguous or mixed:”
This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).
This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.
The Drenth Committee (https://www.commissielevelt.nl) has found evidence of fraud in this article, committed by author Stapel. His coauthor was unaware of his actions, was not in any way involved in the generation of the data, and agrees to the retraction of the article.
The study has been cited 12 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
And Social Psychology Quarterly has retracted “The Norm-Activating Power of Celebrity: The Dynamics of Success and Influence,” cited twice:
Social Psychology Quarterly retracts the article “The Norm-activating Power of Celebrity: The Dynamics of Success and Influence,” by Siegwart Lindenberg, Janneke F. Joly, and Diederik A. Stapel, which appeared in the March 2011 issue (74(1):98–120; DOI: 10.1177/0190272511398208). This retraction stems from the results of an investigation into the work of Diederik A. Stapel (https://www.commissielevelt.nl/noort-committee/publications-examined/), which finds strong evidence of fraud in the dataset supplied by Stapel. His coauthors had no knowledge of his actions and were not involved in the production of the fraudulent data.
Hat tip on JESP: Rolf Degen
What does it mean to be a coauthor without examining the data carefully before writing. Are the coauthors coaches in writing style or grammar?
Are you saying that co-authors usually also inspect the data and run analyses? I would imagine that that would be unusual. That work is normally done by the primary author only.
I don’t know what is “usual”. I would not wish to sign as coauthor unless I knew the experiments thoroughly. If I didn’t, but had contributed some thoughts, acknowledgements are sufficient. If I do sign a paper, I suppose myself to be co-responsable if I am a co-author.
Well, he is Dutch. Perhaps they were checking the English? From what I remember, he was fabricating entire datasets and making up stories about the source of the data. If you trust the person, you don’t doubt the data. It is easy to doubt after the fact.
Dutch academics usually do not need assistance in English.
There should be some kind of medallion for reaching 50 retractions. You can do it, Diederik. We believe in you!
Several of the commentators may well be able to answer their own questions regarding the roles and innocence of the junior co-authors who were not only victims but who also reported the fraud by reading the freely available download of the final report of the investigating committees.
Can Stapel (or someone more trustworthy) just release a list of his papers that aren’t dodgy? It would save space.
For a less serious critique of social science methodology http://www.savagechickens.com/2012/01/scientists.html