At this writing, investigators are not yet clear to what extent the results of these particular studies are discredited by Stapel’s fakery. And nobody knows how extreme an anomaly Stapel’s behavior will prove to be. Leslie John of Harvard Business School recently surveyed more than 2,000 social psychologists about their research methods. She found a rash of research practices she deemed “questionable.” Indeed, she wrote, in social psychology, “some questionable practices may constitute the prevailing research norm.”But it hardly seems to matter, does it? The silliness of social psychology doesn’t lie in its questionable research practices but in the research practices that no one thinks to question. The most common working premise of social-psychology research is far-fetched all by itself: The behavior of a statistically insignificant, self-selected number of college students or high schoolers filling out questionnaires and role-playing in a psych lab can reveal scientifically valid truths about human behavior.
Years ago, when I worked on the copy desk at The Inquirer, a story came to me about the National Audubon Society placing some birds on the Philadelphia-area watch list. I know something about birds, especially those in this area, and one of the birds listed I had never heard of (and do not now remember the name of). The other was the Cerulean Warbler, a bird unlikely to be seen in any urban area. (I believe I actually saw some on vacation a couple of years ago upstate, though it was hard to be sure. They're very small and the birds I saw were high up in the branches, and the sun at the time was a bit of a problem.)
I left a message for the reporter and found he hadn't had time to double-check on what the Audubon Society had sent along. In other words, the article was a re-written press release. In my view, as a journalist, you can never be too skeptical, especially regarding the things you are likely to take for granted.
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