Are researchers full of themselves?
We humans have this natural tendency to view ourselves and our group in a positive light. This has the danger of interfering with our objective self-assessment and collaboration with others. Findings published in ‘Scientific Reports’(opens in new window) revealed that researchers greatly overestimate their commitment to good research practice in comparison with colleagues.
Those self-righteous researchers!
“The starting point for the project is that there’s a bit of a crisis in the research world. Research misconduct or difficulties to replicate research results have been discovered in many studies. Credibility has been called into question,” commented Gustav Tinghög, professor in economics at Linköping University’s Department of Management and Engineering in Sweden, in a news release(opens in new window). “It turns out that almost all researchers consider themselves as good as or better than average, which is a statistical impossibility,” he added. “If everyone could look at themselves objectively, an even distribution around the middle would be expected.” A research team at the Swedish university analysed responses from over 11 000 Swedish researchers. The questionnaire was based on the Swedish Research Council’s rules for what represents good research practice.
Blind spot in acknowledging ethical deficiencies
Results showed that most researchers believe that they are ethically superior, and not just individually, but also throughout entire research domains. This self-assessment bias was particularly obvious in medical research. It serves as a red flag for teamwork across disciplines. Specifically, over 55 % of researchers believed they observe good practices as well as or better than their colleagues. Almost 63 % assessed their research domain’s ethical standards as high or higher than others’. Medicine displayed the highest overestimation. “Every day, researchers face the dilemma: should I do what benefits me or should I do what benefits science. In such a world, it’s important to constantly look at yourself in the mirror and calibrate your research-ethical compass,” concluded Prof. Tinghög.