“Unfinished business”: Diederik Stapel retraction count rises to 53

stapel_npcTwo more papers by Diederik Stapel — who was profiled by The New York Times Magazine this weekend — have been retracted, both in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The notice for “Hardly thinking about close and distant others: On cognitive business and target closeness in social comparison effects,” by Stapel and David Marx, and cited six times:

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).

This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.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 Noort Committee established fraud in this article, committed by author Stapel. For full information, please see https://www.commissielevelt.nl/.

And here’s the notice for “Unfinished business: How completeness affects the impact of emotional states and emotion concepts on social judgement,” by Stapel and Marcus Maringer and cited six times:

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).

This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.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 Levelt Committee established fraud in this article, committed by author Stapel. For full information, please see https://www.commissielevelt.nl/.

In case anyone’s wondering, Stapel is in no danger of overtaking the current retraction record holder, Yoshitaka Fujii — with 183.

Hat tip: Rolf Degen

Correction (8 a.m. Eastern, 5/2/13): When originally published, this post referred to three new retractions, for a total of 54, but as commenter CH points out we had already reported on one of them. We have deleted the duplicated retraction, and the correct total is 53, so we have edited the headline accordingly. Apologies for the error.

4 thoughts on ““Unfinished business”: Diederik Stapel retraction count rises to 53”

  1. Apart from the New York Times, he appeared in the Quote, a business magazine, and subsequently a number of Dutch papers. They were able to tell that Diederik has started a small business as consultant, coach and strategic advisor, under the name “Pile Consult” (“pile” is the English translation for the Dutch word “stapel”).
    My attempt at a translation of the last paragraph: “Diederik is available as self-willed and reassuring advisor, motivator, coach, brand and identity language consultant, co-thinker, questioner, (co- and ghost-) writer, speaker, and – do not forget – experience expert”. How to turn a weakness into a strength.
    http://www.quotenet.nl/Nieuws/Fraudekoning-Diederik-Stapel-keert-terug-als-coach-en-strategisch-adviseur-72355

  2. He has just settled with the Dutch D.A. today: 120 hours of community service. His sentence is due to scientific fraud, not for misuse of grant funds. This ruling took into account that he gave up his PhD title, and agreed to decline sickness/work inability benefits constituting 1,5 years salary pay.
    Here is the link to a Dutch news site, hope it will translate into English.

    http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/3512563/diederik-stapel-krijgt-werkstraf-van-120-uur.html

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