Category: J Exp Psychol Gen

Publisher won’t retract two papers, despite university’s request

Jens Förster

Jens Förster, a high-profile social psychologist, has agreed to retract multiple papers following an institutional investigation — but has also fought to keep some papers intact. Recently, one publisher agreed with his appeal, and announced it would not retract two of his papers, despite the recommendation of his former employer.

Last month, the American Psychological Association (APA) announced it would not retract two papers co-authored by Förster, which the University of Amsterdam had recommended for retraction in May, 2015. The APA had followed the university’s advice last year and retracted two other papers, which Förster had agreed to as part of a settlement with the German Society for Psychology (DGPs). But after multiple appeals by Förster and his co-authors, the publisher has decided to retain the papers as part of the scientific record.

Many voices contributed to the discussion about these two papers — in November, 2016, the University of Amsterdam announced it was rejecting the appeal by another co-author on both papers, Nira Liberman, based at Tel Aviv University in Israel. The following month, Tel Aviv University announced that it believed the articles should not be retracted, based on its own internal review.

The APA reviewed the various recommendations, according to last month’s announcement:

Continue reading Publisher won’t retract two papers, despite university’s request

Former Stanford researcher up to 5 retractions for unreliable data

journal-of-memory-and-languageA psychology researcher formerly based at Stanford University has logged her fifth retraction due to unreliable results.

According to the notice in the Journal of Memory and Language, Sandra Lozano takes full responsibility for the retraction.

Apparently, the retraction has been in the works for eight years — and in that time, journals have retracted four other papers co-authored by Lozano.

A Stanford spokesperson told us: Continue reading Former Stanford researcher up to 5 retractions for unreliable data

Psychologist Jens Förster earns second and third retractions as part of settlement

forster-j-a
Jens Förster

High-profile social psychologist Jens Förster has earned two retractions following an investigation by his former workplace. He agreed to the retractions as part of a settlement with the German Society for Psychology (DGPs).

The papers are two of eight that were found to contain “strong statistical evidence for low veracity.” According to the report from an expert panel convened at the request of the board of the University of Amsterdam, following

an extensive statistical analysis, the experts conclude that many of the experiments described in the articles show an exceptionally linear link. This linearity is not only surprising, but often also too good to be true because it is at odds with the random variation within the experiments.

One of those eight papers was retracted in 2014. In November, the American Psychology Association received an appeal to keep two of the papers, and Förster agreed to the retractions of two more:

Continue reading Psychologist Jens Förster earns second and third retractions as part of settlement

Psychologist Jens Forster settles case by agreeing to 2 retractions

forster-j-a
Jens Förster

Following questions about the veracity of multiple papers by his former employer, high-profile social psychologist Jens Förster has agreed to retract two papers as part of a deal with the German Society for Psychology (DGPs).

Last year, Förster had a paper retracted at the request of his former employer, the University of Amsterdam (UvA). In May, an investigation commissioned by UvA found that many of his experiments looked “too good to be true,” and eight papers showed strong signs of “low veracity.”

Just two of those papers are acknowledged in the settlement of a case by the DGPs against Förster, who currently works at Ruhr University Bochum. Here’s a translation of a notice from the DGPs from One Hour Translation:

Continue reading Psychologist Jens Forster settles case by agreeing to 2 retractions

Third retraction appears for former Wash U neuroscience grad student who committed misconduct

Adam Savine
Adam Savine

Five months after the Office of Research Integrity announced they had found evidence of misconduct by Adam Savine, a former Washington University graduate student in neuroscience, another journal has published a retraction of his work.

Here’s the retraction notice in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General for “A characterization of individual differences in prospective memory monitoring using the Complex Ongoing Serial Task”:
Continue reading Third retraction appears for former Wash U neuroscience grad student who committed misconduct

Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions

Adam Savine
Adam Savine

The Office of Research Integrity says Adam Savine, a former post-doc graduate student in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, committed misconduct in work that tainted three papers and six abstracts he submitted to conferences.

One of Savine’s studies that drew some media attention involved Diederik Stapel-esque research showing which brain region lights up when people see money. He was quoted in this 2010 article on Medical News Today saying:

“We wanted to see what motivates us to pursue one goal in the world above all others,” Savine says. “You might think that these mechanisms would have been addressed a long time ago in psychology and neuroscience, but it’s not been until the advent of fMRI about 15-20 years ago that we’ve had the tools to address this question in humans, and any progress in this area has been very, very recent.”

Apparently, now we know. According to the notice, Savine engaged in misconduct in research funded by four grants: Continue reading Wash U psych researcher cited in ORI probe, faces multiple retractions