Two journals have retracted 13 papers co-authored by the late — and controversial — psychologist Hans Eysenck, following a university investigation that found dozens of his papers to be “unsafe.”
One of the journals, Perceptual and Motor Skills, subjected 36 of Eysenck’s papers to expressions of concern, while another — Psychological Reports — subjected 25 of them to the same flag. Both journals are published by SAGE.
A May 2019 report by King’s College London into the work of Eysenck and Ronald Grossarth-Maticek, apparently of the University Heidelberg, that more than two dozen papers be retracted. Among other issues, the report cited
the implausibility of the results presented, many of which show effect sizes virtually unknown in medical science.
The notice in Perceptual and Motor Skills reads:
The following articles have been retracted as a result of King’s College London’s review of certain publications authored by Hans J. Eysenck with Ronald Grossarth-Maticek on the subject of personality and certain health outcomes. The King’s College London review committee recommended that the articles in their review be retracted due to finding they are unsafe, specifically noting the following:
— Concerns with the validity of the datasets, including the “recruitment of participants, administration of measures, reliability of outcome ascertainment, biases in data collection, absence of relevant covariates, and selection of cases analysed in each article.”
— The results reported by Eysenck and Grossarth-Maticek were implausible and incompatible with modern clinical science and the understanding of disease processes.
The King’s College London report may be read here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/statements/hans-eysenck
The Editor and SAGE strive to uphold the very highest standards of publication ethics and are committed to supporting the high standards of integrity of Perceptual and Motor Skills. Authors, reviewers, editors and interested readers should consult the ethics section of the SAGE website and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) website for guidelines on publication ethics.
Retracted articles
— Grossarth-Maticek, R., Eysenck, H. J., Uhlenbruck, G., Rieder, H., Vetter, H., Freesemann, C., … Liesen, H. (1990). Sport Activity and Personality as Elements in Preventing Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 71(1), 199–209. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1990.71.1.199
While the King’s College London review did not specifically name the following two articles as problematic, after consideration of the serious nature of the concerns that were identified by the College, and review of an editorial by David F. Marks in Journal of Health Psychology, the Editor and SAGE believed it was appropriate to retract the following two articles as well.
— Grossarth-Maticek, R., Eysenck, H. J., & Vetter, H. (1988). Antismoking Attitudes and General Prejudice: An Empirical Study. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 66(3), 927–931. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1988.66.3.927
— Eysenck, H. J. (1990). The Prediction of Death from Cancer by Means of Personality/Stress Questionnaire: Too Good to Be True? Perceptual and Motor Skills, 71(1), 216–218. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1990.71.1.216
The three retracted papers were cited a total of 19 times, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science.
Here’s the notice in Psychological Reports for the 10 papers:
The following articles have been retracted following the results of King’s College London’s review of certain publications authored by Hans J. Eysenck with Ronald Grossarth-Maticek on the subject of personality and health outcomes. The King’s College London review committee recommended that the articles in their review be retracted due to finding they are unsafe, specifically noting the following:
Concerns with the validity of the datasets, including the “recruitment of participants, administration of measures, reliability of outcome ascertainment, biases in data collection, absence of relevant covariates, and selection of cases analysed in each article.”
The results reported by Eysenck and Grossarth-Maticek were implausible and incompatible with modern clinical science and the understanding of disease processes.
The editor determined several other articles by the authors that describe the same body of research should also be retracted based on the King’s College London report findings, and these articles are additionally listed below. The King’s College report is available here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/statements/hans-eysenck
1. Grossarth-Maticek, R., & Eysenck, H. J. (1989). Is Media Information That Smoking Causes Illness a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? Psychological Reports, 65(1), 177–178. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1989.65.1.177
2. Grossarth-Maticek, R., & Eysenck, H. J. (1989). Length of Survival and Lymphocyte Percentage in Women with Mammary Cancer as a Function of Psychotherapy. Psychological Reports, 65(1), 315–321. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1989.65.1.315
3. Grossarth-Maticek, R., & Eysenck, H. J. (1990). Personality, Stress and Disease: Description and Validation of a New Inventory. Psychological Reports, 66(2), 355–373. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1990.66.2.355
4. Grossarth-Maticek, R., & Eysenck, H. J. (1990). Personality, Smoking, and Alcohol as Synergistic Risk Factors for Cancer of the Mouth and Pharynx. Psychological Reports, 67(3), 1024–1026. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1990.67.3.1024
5. Grossarth-Maticek, R., & Eysenck, H. J. (1991). Coca-Cola, Cancers, and Coronaries: Personality and Stress as Mediating Factors. Psychological Reports, 68(3_suppl), 1083–1087. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1991.68.3c.1083
6. Grossarth-Maticek, R., & Eysenck, H. J. (1991). Personality, Stress, and Motivational Factors in Drinking as Determinants of Risk for Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease. Psychological Reports, 69(3), 1027–1043. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1991.69.3.1027
7. Maticek, R., Eysenck, H. J., & Boyle, G. J. (1995). Alcohol Consumption and Health: Synergistic Interaction with Personality. Psychological Reports, 77(2), 675–687. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1995.77.2.675
8. Grossarth-Maticek, R., Eysenck, H.-J., & Barrett, P. T. (1993). Prediction of cancer and coronary heart disease as a function of method of questionnaire administration. Psychological Reports, 73(3, Pt 1), 943–959. http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1993.73.3.943
9. Eysenck, H. J. (1993). Prediction of Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease Mortality by Means of a Personality Inventory: Results of a 15-Year Follow-up Study. Psychological Reports, 72(2), 499–516. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1993.72.2.499 [Not referenced in King’s College Report but discusses the same body of research].
10. Eysenck, H. J. (1995). Does Smoking Really Kill Anybody? Psychological Reports, 77(3_suppl), 1243–1246. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1995.77.3f.1243 [Not referenced in King’s College Report but discusses the same body of research].
The 10 papers have been cited anywhere from a handful of times to a few dozen.
Papers decades old
One of the articles subjected by Psychological Reports to an expression of concern dates back to 1955, and several to 1960. None of those subject to an expression of concern includes Grossarth-Maticek as a co-author.
Eysenck’s work has been the subject of scrutiny since the early 1990s. Some of it was cited heavily by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s controversial book The Bell Curve. As we noted last year,
In February, Anthony Pelosi published a paper in the Journal of Health Psychology calling the Eysenck case “one of the worst scientific scandals of all time,” accompanied by an editorial from David Marks calling for an inquiry by King’s and the British Psychological Society.
Eysenck has now had 14 papers retracted. The first retraction appeared in January. Eysenck’s biographer, Rod Buchanan, thinks that the retraction count may grow well past 60. Scientific sleuth James Heathers has also weighed in on the case.
Updated 1300 UTC, 2/12/20, with ten more retractions from Psychological Reports. Thanks to Dennis Tourish for letting us know about those.
Updated 1100 UTC, 2/13/20: Updated totals of expressions of concern to 61. When downloaded, the PDFs of those notices only included their first pages, hence the lower-appearing totals. Thanks to David Marks for alerting us.
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The reference to “The Bell Curve” is gratuitous and unfair. Of the hundreds of citations in that book, three are of Eysenck’s articles. Two of those articles are about the effectiveness of vitamin supplements as a treatment for IQ, and one is about the correlation between IQ and reaction time. None of the citations are related to Eysenck’s shoddy work in health psychology, and Grossarth-Maticek’s work isn’t cited at all.
I do not think these two journals were published by sage at the time. They were private and accepted a large proportion of submissions. Authors were required to purchase hard copy reprints of their paper as a condition of acceptance. Not quite but almost predatory imo.
Eysenck’s PhD supervisor, discredited since the 1970s , Cyril Burt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Burt
A bit of lineage tracing might have brought all this to a head much earlier.
The range of topics covered by Eysenck’ flagged articles goes way beyond the research based on Grossarth-Maticek’s suspect data. It includes papers written with at least 24 co-authors many of whom hold established positions at London University and elsewhere.
This action taken by SAGE Publications indicates the need for a complete review of Eysenck’s work including his papers on personality and intelligence which until now have not been challenged as potentially fraudulent.
Hans Eysenck’s reputation as the third most cited person after Freud and Marx is now in tatters. The question is: how did Eysenck get away with this huge body of unsafe work for more than half a century? Where are his defenders and acolytes? Why are they not springing out to defend him? Are there more surprises yet to come?
Perhaps the true story of Hans Eysenck’s meteoric career has only just begun.