A Harvard behavioral scientist who studies dishonesty has been accused of falsifying data in research papers she co-authored.
Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School, is currently on administrative leave after explosive allegations surfaced that question the credibility of her research.
In a blog post earlier this month, a trio of data researchers presented evidence of academic fraud in four studies Gino co-authored, noting that they also “believe many other papers Gino authored contain falsified data.”
Gino was a rising star at Harvard, and her behavioral research studies of cheating, lying, and dishonesty have garnered widespread media coverage over the past decade.
However, questions about her work first surfaced in connection with a 2012 study she co-authored, which purported to show that honest responses increase when people are made to put an honesty promise at the beginning rather than the end of a form to sign.
Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School, is currently on administrative leave after explosive allegations surfaced that question the credibility of her research
That study was withdrawn in 2021 due to apparent data falsification by another researcher who had worked on the project, who cited three separate laboratory experiments to support his conclusion.
However, data scientists Uri Simonsohn, Joseph Simmons and Leif Nelson claim that the data falsification in the study went deeper than initially thought and also involved Gino.
“That’s right: Two different people independently falsified data for two different studies in an article on dishonesty,” the trio wrote on their blog DataColada, where they posted the new evidence to support their claims.
Gino did not immediately respond to a request for comment from on Saturday afternoon.
The three scientists published their concerns a day after the Chronicle of Higher Education reported June 16 that Gino had been suspended amid an internal investigation at Harvard into the validity of their research.
One of Gino’s co-authors on the 2012 research report told The Chronicle that Harvard informed him that the study Gino oversaw for the article appeared to contain fabricated results.
Gino was a rising star at Harvard, and her behavioral research studies of cheating, lying, and dishonesty have garnered widespread media coverage over the past decade
Gino joined the faculty at Harvard Business School in 2010 after holding positions at the University of North Carolina and Carnegie Mellon University.
She has won awards and flattering media coverage for her trending behavioral research, which purported to uncover insights into how to subtly influence people’s decisions and behavior without them realizing it.
But now Gino’s frequent research partner Maurice Schweitzer speaks up and expresses the fear that he himself has been manipulated and cheated in their joint work.
Schweitzer, a behavioral scientist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told the New York Times that he is now carefully reviewing the eight articles he co-authored with Gino for evidence of fraud.
He said the allegations against Gino “cause a stir in the academic community” because she’s “someone with so many collaborators and so many articles who really is a leading scientist in this field.”
The 2012 work was based on three separate behavioral experiments, including one conducted by Gino in which subjects were asked to fill out a worksheet of 20 puzzles, with a promise of $1 for each puzzle solved correctly.
Gino’s frequent research partner Maurice Schweitzer says he is currently carefully reviewing the eight articles he co-authored with Gino for evidence of fraud
Participants were then asked to fill out a form asking them how much money they had made by solving the puzzles. In doing so, they were led to believe that it was not recognizable that they were lying on the form, although the researchers were actually able to check the number of puzzles solved.
The study found that participants were more likely to correctly report their jigsaw earnings when presented with a pledge of honesty at the top of the form than at the bottom, where such certifications typically appear on tax returns.
In their DataColada blog post, the trio of scientists analyzed data from the experiment posted online and found that metadata in an Excel file suggested the results had been manipulated in a way that supported the study’s conclusion.
In 2021, the same scientists uncovered apparent data falsifications in a separate study conducted for the article, which relied on data from an insurance company.
The article was retracted by the editors of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, where it was first published, following the 2021 blog post.