Why Do U.S. Behavioral Science Researchers Keep Skewing Their Results?
Mad Science J.J. via Wikimedia Commons Go America, land of exaggerating to get ahead! Despite its lofty ideals, science isn't always impartial and unbiased. Scientists on occasion have fabricated data, or at least tweaked it to suit their needs. They've got a career to make, after all, and boring findings don't bring fame and fortune. So how often are scientists prone to exaggerating or cherry-picking their results? When it comes to U.S.-based soft sciences, kind of a lot. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, behavioral sciences researchers from the U.S. in particular are more likely to overestimate their findings, compared to researchers from other countries. And it was only in behavioral research--the same "U.S. effect" did not show up in nonbehavioral studies. Behavioral science encompasses anything that studies the way people (or animals) act and interact in the world, usually...