The journal Social Influence will be issuing expressions of concern for four papers by Nicolas Guéguen, a marketing researcher whose work has long been dogged by allegations, Retraction Watch has learned.
Guéguen has to date has lost at least three papers to retraction, and has received many more expressions of concern, for his questionable studies. However, his institution, the Université de Bretagne-Sud, cleared him of wrongdoing in 2019.
Guéguen made a name for himself for his quirky studies – often about human sexuality – like one purporting to find women with bigger breasts were more likely to be successful hitchhikers; and one which claimed to find men with guitar cases are more attractive to women. (The first of those articles has an expression of concern; the second was retracted in 2020.)
The four new expressions of concern involve these articles which the journal, a Taylor & Francis title, published between 2007 and 2015:
- Courtship compliance: The effect of touch on women’s behaviour (2007)
- “Say it with flowers”: The effect of flowers on mating attractiveness and behavior (2011)
- Mimicry and seduction: An evaluation in a courtship context (2009)
- The effect of requesting money with a few coins in one hand: The foot-in-the-hand technique (2015)
According to an email from journal editor in chief Ilja van Beest that was seen by Retraction Watch, the notices for all four articles will read:
Taylor & Francis and the Editor-in-Chief of Social Influence, Prof. dr. Ilja van Beest, have been made aware of scientific concerns regarding the integrity of research published by Dr. Nicholas [sic] Guéguen. The Editorial team conducted a rigorous review of all work published by Dr. Nicholas [sic] Guéguen in Social Influence and have significant concerns regarding four articles [listed below]. Concerns are related but not limited to reliability of data, ethical consent and replicability of findings.
Together with the journal’s editorial team, Taylor & Francis are conducting an investigation into these articles. Due to a lack of response from Dr. Nicholas [sic] Guéguen these investigations remain open. This Expression of Concern will remain until investigations are judged to be complete by the Publisher.
Guéguen has not responded to a request for comment.
Nick Brown, a data sleuth who with James Heathers has been calling critical attention to Guéguen’s work for years – including the four articles in Social Influence – said he was:
pleased to see that four of the articles that this author published in Social Influence are being flagged with Expressions of Concern, and I am particularly glad to learn the investigation into them is not over. I hope that retractions will follow, and that the journal will also investigate the 10 other articles (co-)authored by Guéguen that it has published, most of which suffer from the same problems as these four.
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“Due to a lack of response from Dr. Nicholas Guéguen these investigations remain open.”
Stonewalling is such a solid strategy. Amazing that journals let themselves get blocked by nonresponse. Seems like a pretty straightforward path to retraction if a couple months go by without author responses .
Most journal editors I have written to actually prefer the authors of the criticized articles to refuse to answer to my critique, so that those editors have an excuse to ignore my letter and sweep it under the rug. As I said earlier, 2 things are the worst nightmare of chief editors: retractions and letters to editors. They do anything in their power to avoid both. I have seen some very embarrassing cases, where the chief-editor desperately tried to pretend the paper is intact where strong evidence showed it was data fabrication.
The journal has no basis to retract. Why would he respond?
The author’s name is spelled “Nicolas Guéguen” – without the “h” in Nicolas. That’s how it is spelled in French.
It is written this way in all his papers as far as I can tell… the spelling is wrong in the email from the journal editor cited here.
Cheers.
Fixed — thanks.
This hilarity still going on after all these years? Oh my… I remember Nick Brown calling it aptly the “Benny Hill science”.