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67 - Whoever Pays the Piper Calls the Tune

A Case of Documenting Funding Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

Howard Tennen
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut Health Center
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Susan T. Fiske
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
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Summary

The integrity of science requires transparency and freedom from interests other than the search for knowledge. A challenge to insulating the scientific enterprise from external influence is that the source of research funding tends to correlate with a study’s findings and authors’ interpretations of their findings. This “funding effect” (Krimsky, 2013) has been well documented, with a focus on the influence of for-profit/industry funders. Yet in psychological science, a comparable threat comes from ideological interests. This case study captures the potential influence of the ideological funding effect on psychological science.

The Ethical Challenge

Several years ago I was asked to serve as action editor for a journal article that reviewed and integrated several research areas. The authors’ interpretation of the evidence and its implications for public policy was quite controversial. The reviewers took issue with several of the authors’ interpretations, and in a revision, the authors addressed my concerns and those of the reviewers. Because there were several relatively minor issues that needed to be addressed in a second revision, I accepted the manuscript for publication pending these minor changes, but with the caveat that after accepting the final version, I would invite a commentary.

The final version of the manuscript was satisfactory. Howerver, I noticed that this version included an acknowledgment of a source of funding that had not appeared in previous versions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ethical Challenges in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Case Studies and Commentaries
, pp. 208 - 211
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

Babor, T. F., & McGovern, T. (2008). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. In Babor, T. F., Stenius, K., Savva, S., & O’Reilly, J. (Eds.), Publishing addiction science: A guide for the perplexed (2nd ed., pp. 153–171). Essex: Multi-Science Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Krimsky, S. (2013). Do financial conflicts of interest bias research? An inquiry into the “funding effect” hypothesis. Science Technology Human Values, 38, 566–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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