Can High Moral Purposes Undermine Scientific Integrity?

Jussim, Lee; Crawford, Jarret T.; Stevens, Sean T.; Anglin, Stephanie M.; Duarte, José L.

doi:10.4324/9781315644189-11

Cited by 21 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Kahan's work points to some likely possibilities. Kahan's work helps explain the prevalence of questionable interpretive practices (QIPs)narrative, conceptual, and interpretive means by which scientists can and do reach unjustified conclusions, even in the complete absence of statistical or methodological errors and flaws, and even when findings are replicable (Jussim et al 2015a;2016b;2016c;2016d). QIPs captured in SPSR include: Logical incoherence: Reaching opposite or contradictory conclusions, as long as both advance one's preferred narratives, values, theory, or ideology.…”

Section: R6 Confirmation Bias and Questionable Interpretive Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Précis of Social Perception and Social Reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy

Jussim¹

2015

Behav Brain Sci

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Social Perception and Social Reality (Jussim 2012) reviews the evidence in social psychology and related fields and reaches three conclusions: (1) Although errors, biases, and self-fulfilling prophecies in person perception are real, reliable, and occasionally quite powerful, on average, they tend to be weak, fragile, and fleeting. (2) Perceptions of individuals and groups tend to be at least moderately, and often highly accurate. (3) Conclusions based on the research on error, bias, and self-fulfilling prophecies routinely greatly overstate their power and pervasiveness, and consistently ignore evidence of accuracy, agreement, and rationality in social perception. The weight of the evidence - including some of the most classic research widely interpreted as testifying to the power of biased and self-fulfilling processes - is that interpersonal expectations relate to social reality primarily because they reflect rather than cause social reality. This is the case not only for teacher expectations, but also for social stereotypes, both as perceptions of groups, and as the bases of expectations regarding individuals. The time is long overdue to replace cherry-picked and unjustified stories emphasizing error, bias, the power of self-fulfilling prophecies, and the inaccuracy of stereotypes, with conclusions that more closely correspond to the full range of empirical findings, which includes multiple failed replications of classic expectancy studies, meta-analyses consistently demonstrating small or at best moderate expectancy effects, and high accuracy in social perception.

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Section: R6 Confirmation Bias and Questionable Interpretive Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Précis of Social Perception and Social Reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy

Jussim¹

2015

Behav Brain Sci

Self Cite

233

236

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“…In such cases, the scientist as intuitive-theologian is faced with balancing commitments to competing sacred values, including those of the scientific community. Unsurprisingly, in such battles, the scientists’ personal values often win out, leading them to adopt questionable interpretative practices favoring their ideological commitments ( Jussim et al, 2016 ). For example, not only is there a prevalent liberal bias in social science, but many social scientists admit they would discriminate against colleagues who do not share their political views ( Inbar and Lammers, 2012 ; Duarte et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Scientists In the Advisory Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debunking the Myth of Value-Neutral Virginity: Toward Truth in Scientific Advertising

Mandel

2016

Front. Psychol.

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The scientific community often portrays science as a value-neutral enterprise that crisply demarcates facts from personal value judgments. We argue that this depiction is unrealistic and important to correct because science serves an important knowledge generation function in all modern societies. Policymakers often turn to scientists for sound advice, and it is important for the wellbeing of societies that science delivers. Nevertheless, scientists are human beings and human beings find it difficult to separate the epistemic functions of their judgments (accuracy) from the social-economic functions (from career advancement to promoting moral-political causes that “feel self-evidently right”). Drawing on a pluralistic social functionalist framework that identifies five functionalist mindsets—people as intuitive scientists, economists, politicians, prosecutors, and theologians—we consider how these mindsets are likely to be expressed in the conduct of scientists. We also explore how the context of policymaker advising is likely to activate or de-activate scientists’ social functionalist mindsets. For instance, opportunities to advise policymakers can tempt scientists to promote their ideological beliefs and values, even if advising also brings with it additional accountability pressures. We end prescriptively with an appeal to scientists to be more circumspect in characterizing their objectivity and honesty and to reject idealized representations of scientific behavior that inaccurately portray scientists as value-neutral virgins.

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“…Kahan 's work points to some likely possibilities. Kahan's work helps explain the prevalence of questionable interpretive practices (QIPs) – narrative, conceptual, and interpretive means by which scientists can and do reach unjustified conclusions, even in the complete absence of statistical or methodological errors and flaws, and even when findings are replicable (Jussim et al 2015a; 2016b; 2016c; 2016d). QIPs captured in SPSR include: Logical incoherence: Reaching opposite or contradictory conclusions, as long as both advance one's preferred narratives, values, theory, or ideology.…”

Section: Confirmation Bias and Questionable Interpretive Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accuracy, bias, self-fulfilling prophecies, and scientific self-correction

Jussim

2017

Behav Brain Sci

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In my Précis of Social Perception and Social Reality (Jussim 2012, henceforth abbreviated as SPSR), I argued that the social science scholarship on social perception and interpersonal expectancies was characterized by a tripartite pattern: (1) Errors, biases, and self-fulfilling prophecies in person perception were generally weak, fragile, and fleeting; (2) Social perceptions were often quite accurate; and (3) Conclusions appearing throughout the social psychology scientific literature routinely overstated the power and pervasiveness of expectancy effects, and ignored evidence of accuracy. Most commentators concurred with the validity of these conclusions. Two, however, strongly disagreed with the conclusion that the evidence consistently has shown that stereotypes are moderately to highly accurate. Several others, while agreeing with most of the specifics, also suggested that those arguments did not necessarily apply to contexts outside of those covered in SPSR. In this response, I consider all these aspects: the limitations to the tripartite pattern, the role of politics and confirmation biases in distorting scientific conclusions, common obstructions to effective scientific self-correction, and how to limit them.

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Can High Moral Purposes Undermine Scientific Integrity?

Cited by 21 publications

References 1 publication

Précis of Social Perception and Social Reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy

Précis of Social Perception and Social Reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy

Debunking the Myth of Value-Neutral Virginity: Toward Truth in Scientific Advertising

Accuracy, bias, self-fulfilling prophecies, and scientific self-correction

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