Academia is BROKEN! - Harvard Fake Data Scandal Explained

Summary

This video script discusses the academic integrity crisis, spotlighting Francesca Gino, a Harvard professor whose research is under scrutiny for suspicious data. Three professors, Yuri, Joe, and Laif, have investigated Gino's studies, revealing anomalies that cast doubt on her findings. The video summarizes their findings across three articles, highlighting the potential manipulation of data to achieve dramatic, publishable results. This situation not only tarnishes Gino's reputation but also raises concerns about the reliability of academic research in behavioral science.

Takeaways

• 📚 The script discusses the alleged academic misconduct by Francesca Gino, a professor of Behavioral Science at Harvard University, and the impact on the field of academia.
• 🔍 Three articles have been published scrutinizing Gino's research, revealing potential data manipulation and questionable practices in her studies.
• 🤔 The first study 'Cluster Fake' questioned the effectiveness of an honesty pledge's placement on forms and the integrity of the data presented in the study.
• 📉 In the second study 'My Class Year is Harvard', anomalies in demographic data, specifically the year in school, raised suspicions about the validity of the research findings.
• 🧐 The third study 'Cheaters are out of Order' investigated the link between dishonesty and creativity, with the data suggesting a strong effect that disappeared upon closer inspection.
• 🚫 Francesca Gino is currently on administrative leave from Harvard, and several of her papers have been retracted, indicating serious academic concerns.
• 💡 The script highlights the pressure on academics to produce surprising results with large effect sizes to secure publication in top journals and maintain their positions.
• 🤨 The incident casts doubt on the reliability of academic research in the field of Behavioral Science and raises questions about the prevalence of such misconduct.
• 📈 The script emphasizes the importance of transparency and integrity in academic research, suggesting that the incentives in the academic system may be misaligned with good scientific practices.
• 🙏 The author empathizes with the pressure faced by academics but strongly condemns the manipulation of data as unacceptable.
• 📚 The script serves as a call to action for the academic community to reassess its standards and practices to prevent similar issues in the future.

Q & A

What is the main issue raised by the video script regarding Francesca Gino's research?

The main issue raised is the suspicion of data manipulation and questionable research practices in Francesca Gino's studies, which have led to surprising and seemingly too good to be true results.

Who are the three professors that investigated Francesca Gino's research?

The three professors are Yuri, Joe, and Laif, who are all specialists in Behavioral Science and related fields from different universities around the world.

What was the hypothesis of the 2012 study involving an honesty pledge?

The hypothesis was that placing an honesty pledge at the top of a form would make participants more honest when filling out the rest of the form compared to placing it at the bottom.

What was the surprising result of the first study mentioned in the script?

The surprising result was that only 37% of students lied when the honesty pledge was at the top of the form, compared to 79% when it was at the bottom, indicating a massive effect size.

What irregularities were found in the data set of the first study?

Irregularities included duplicate participant IDs and a sequence of IDs that did not make sense, suggesting that the data may have been tampered with to show a larger effect size.

What was the hypothesis of the second study involving arguing against personal beliefs?

The hypothesis was that arguing against one's own beliefs would make a person feel 'dirty' and subsequently increase their desire for cleansing products.

What was suspicious about the demographic data in the second study?

The suspicious data included 20 entries where the participants' year in school was listed as 'Harvard', which made no sense and suggested possible data manipulation.

What was the hypothesis of the third study on dishonesty and creativity?

The hypothesis was that people who are dishonest or cheat may be more creative, as the study aimed to explore the link between dishonesty and creative thinking.

What was the irregularity found in the data set of the third study?

The irregularity was that the number of uses for a piece of newspaper reported by some participants who cheated was out of order, suggesting that the data may have been manipulated to show a significant effect.

What is the broader implication of the issues found in Francesca Gino's research?

The broader implication is that it casts doubt on the integrity of academic research in the field of Behavioral Science and raises concerns about the reliability of published studies.

What has been the response from Harvard University regarding Francesca Gino's research?

Francesca Gino has been placed on administrative leave, and Harvard has requested the retraction of several of her papers from the journals they were published in.

What does the video script suggest about the pressures faced by academics?

The script suggests that academics, especially at top institutions like Harvard, face immense pressure to publish surprising results with large effect sizes to maintain their positions and reputations.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Academia's Integrity Crisis: Questioning Francesca Gino's Research

The video script begins by highlighting a critical issue within academia, specifically pointing out the alleged flaws in the research conducted by Francesca Gino, a professor of Behavioral Science at Harvard University. The speaker mentions three articles that scrutinize Gino's work, which has been previously well-regarded and influential in the field. The skepticism stems from the unusually high success rates and significant statistical results in Gino's studies, which have led some to suspect potential data manipulation. The video promises to delve into the details of these concerns, starting with a study on honesty pledges and their impact on cheating behavior.

05:00

🔍 Data Anomalies in Gino's 'Clustered Faking' Study

This section focuses on the first of the three articles, which examines a study by Francesca Gino and her collaborators on the effect of honesty pledges on form-filling behavior. The study's surprising results, showing a significant decrease in dishonesty when the pledge is placed at the top of a form, attracted much attention. However, upon closer inspection by the article's authors, anomalies in the data sorting were discovered, suggesting potential tampering. The anomalies included duplicate participant IDs and out-of-sequence numbers, which cast doubt on the study's validity and raised questions about the integrity of academic publishing.

10:01

🤔 Questionable Data in a Harvard Study on Belief and Cleansing Desires

The second paragraph discusses another study by Francesca Gino, this time in collaboration with Kuchaki and Golinski, which explored the hypothesis that arguing against one's beliefs increases the desire for cleansing products. The study, conducted at Harvard University, reported a strong effect size, with a p-value significantly less than the industry standard, indicating a high level of confidence in the results. However, the vigilantes who investigated the study found suspicious demographic data entries, such as the nonsensical answer 'Harvard' to the question about the participant's year in school. These entries were clustered together and seemed to exaggerate the study's effect, leading to further skepticism about the research's integrity.

15:02

😶 Irregularities in a Study Linking Dishonesty and Creativity

The third paragraph addresses a more recent study by Gino, this time co-authored with Wiltermuth, which paradoxically investigates the link between dishonesty and creativity. The study, titled 'Evil Genius,' used a virtual coin-flipping task to measure dishonesty and then assessed creativity through the number of uses participants could think of for a piece of newspaper. The study reported an extremely strong effect size, but the vigilantes' analysis of the data revealed irregularities in the排序 of responses, with some entries appearing out of order. This raised further doubts about the validity of the study and the integrity of the research conducted by Gino.

😟 The Broader Implications of Academic Misconduct

In the final paragraph, the video script reflects on the broader implications of the alleged misconduct by Francesca Gino. It discusses the impact on the field of Behavioral Science, the potential widespread nature of such issues in academia, and the pressure on academics to produce surprising results for publication in top journals. The speaker empathizes with the pressures faced by academics but condemns the manipulation of data as unacceptable. The paragraph concludes by acknowledging the personal toll this situation may have taken on Gino and encourages viewers to read the articles for a deeper understanding of the issues raised.

Keywords

💡Academia

Academia refers to the world of higher education and research. In the context of the video, it is portrayed as 'broken' due to the alleged fraudulent research practices highlighted, which question the integrity and reliability of academic findings. The term is used to set the stage for discussing the broader implications of the research misconduct on the academic community.

💡Francesca Gino

Francesca Gino is a professor of Behavioral Science at Harvard University mentioned in the video. She is a central figure in the narrative as the video discusses the controversy surrounding her research. The video script raises questions about the validity of her studies, which have been well-regarded in the field of Behavioral Science.

💡Research Misconduct

Research misconduct encompasses various forms of dishonesty in research, such as data fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism. The script discusses specific instances of alleged data manipulation in Francesca Gino's studies, suggesting that the surprising results and large effect sizes may have been artificially generated to gain academic fame and publication in top journals.

💡Effect Size

Effect size is a measure of the strength of the relationship between variables in a study. In the video, the unusually large effect sizes reported in Gino's research are suspicious and lead to an investigation, suggesting that the data may have been manipulated to exaggerate the impact of the findings.

💡Statistical Significance

Statistical significance refers to the probability that the observed results of a study are not due to chance. The video points out that the p-values reported in Gino's studies are unusually low, indicating a high level of confidence in the findings. However, the investigation suggests that this significance may be due to data manipulation rather than genuine effects.

💡Data Tampering

Data tampering involves altering or fabricating research data to achieve desired outcomes. The video provides examples of how the data in Gino's studies appears to have been sorted in a way that is inconsistent with standard practices, suggesting that the data may have been manipulated to support the researchers' hypotheses.

💡Honesty Pledge

An honesty pledge is a statement or commitment to truthfulness, often used in research to encourage participants to be honest. In one of the studies discussed, the placement of an honesty pledge at the top or bottom of a form was hypothesized to affect the honesty of participants' responses. The video reveals discrepancies in the data related to this study, casting doubt on the validity of the findings.

💡Behavioral Science

Behavioral Science is an interdisciplinary field that studies human behavior and decision-making. Francesca Gino is a professor in this field, and the video discusses how her alleged research misconduct could impact the credibility of the entire field. The term is used to contextualize the significance of the research in question and its implications for related studies and theories.

💡Replication Crisis

The replication crisis in science refers to the difficulty of reproducing the results of certain studies, which can indicate underlying issues with research practices. While not explicitly mentioned in the script, the video's discussion of questionable research practices by a prominent researcher touches on themes relevant to the replication crisis, suggesting that the integrity of published findings in Behavioral Science may be at risk.

💡Publish or Perish

The phrase 'publish or perish' reflects the pressure on academics to frequently publish research in order to advance their careers. The video implies that this pressure may have contributed to the alleged data manipulation in Gino's research, as surprising findings with large effect sizes are more likely to be published in prestigious journals.

Highlights

Academia faces criticism due to the alleged data manipulation in the research of Francesca Gino, a professor of Behavioral Science at Harvard University.

Francesca Gino is renowned for surprising findings in her research, which has led to skepticism and investigation by other academics.

Three professors, Yuri, Joe, and Laif, scrutinized Gino's data and discovered anomalies, suggesting potential data tampering.

The study 'Cluster, Fake' revealed a significant effect of honesty pledges on form cheating, with suspicious data sorting that raised questions about its validity.

The 'My Class Year is Harvard' study showed an implausible hypothesis that arguing against one's beliefs increases desire for cleansing products, with data anomalies found in demographic responses.

The third study, 'Cheaters are out of Order', suggested a link between dishonesty and creativity, with data inconsistencies in the number of uses for a piece of newspaper.

Gino's research has been influential, with her work being referenced in books and academic essays, which now casts doubt on their credibility.

The investigation exposed the potential for data manipulation to exaggerate effects and secure publication in top journals.

The academic community is under scrutiny, with the integrity of Behavioral Science research being questioned due to these findings.

Francesca Gino is currently on administrative leave from Harvard, and several of her papers have been retracted.

The incident highlights the pressure on academics to produce surprising results, potentially leading to unethical practices.

The video calls for a reevaluation of trust in academic research and the need for better safeguards against data manipulation.

The implications of these findings extend beyond Gino, affecting the credibility of the entire field of Behavioral Science.

The video concludes by empathizing with the pressures faced by academics while condemning the manipulation of research data.

A call to action for the academic community to uphold the integrity of research and resist the temptation to fabricate results for career advancement.

The video serves as a cautionary tale for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners who rely on academic research for decision-making.

Transcripts

Academia is broken universities are

broken the way that academic research is

published is broken that's the message

that's come through loud and clear over

the last few weeks thanks to three

articles concerning the research of

Francesca Geno if you don't know what

I'm talking about Let Me Explain

Francesca Geno is a professor of

Behavioral Science at Harvard University

she is extremely well known in the field

I've talked about her research to

clients before I've recommended books on

this channel to you guys that use her

work as a key reference I've used her

research before as references in my own

essays and work that I did at University

when it comes to academic Fame Francesca

Gino is up there as you would expect

from someone who is a professor at

Harvard however the reason why she's so

well known is because her research tends

to bring out a lot of very surprising

findings now some people just think this

research is cool and don't think much

more about it but a lot of people in the

industry have been quite skeptical of

Francesco Gino and her work because her

results just seem a little bit too good

her hypotheses are really wacky but yeah

they always seem to be proved correct

the effect sizes from her studies seem

to be really large and her statistical

significance just seem a little bit too

significant so while some of us have

been skeptical of her work for a while

nobody has taken the time to actually

investigate her research and go into her

data to see if they can find anything

fishy

until now these three guys Yuri Joe and

laif are also professors of Behavioral

Science and other related subjects from

different universities across the world

and they took it upon themselves to

investigate Francesca Gino and her data

to see if there was anything fishy going

on and spoiler alert they found a lot of

fishy stuff in the data and that's what

the three articles that they released

are talking about each article relates

to a different study by Francesco Gino

and in this video I'm going to be taking

you through each one the results of

their investigation are shocking damning

for Francesca Gino but I think they

speak even louder volumes about the

state of Academia in general and that's

what I'm going to be concluding on at

the end of this video so without further

Ado let's jump into the first study so

this first article is called cluster

fake and it's referring to a paper

written by Gino in 2012 along with her

collaborators Shu Nina Mazar Dan arieli

and Max baseman given the fact that I

know the first names of all of those

researchers with the exception of Shu

should tell you that all of these

researchers are very well-known people

in the field of Behavioral Science so in

this study they were trying to get

participants to be more honest and the

hypothesis was that if you put an

honesty pledge at the top of a form

that'll make people more honest when

they then fill out the rest of the form

so all of the studies in this paper by

these authors were looking at this idea

that if you put an honesty pledge at the

top of a form people will be more honest

than if you put the honesty pledge at

the bottom of a form now the first study

in this paper was led by Francesca Geno

our protagonist so in this study

students were brought into a lab to

complete 20 math puzzles in five minutes

the students were told that they would

be paid one dollar for each math puzzle

they solved correctly and the way that

this worked is that when students walked

into the room there were two pieces of

paper they had their work paper and

their report paper so on the work paper

they write down their workings for the

math questions and of course their

answers and then on the report paper

they would then have to report how many

answers they got correctly and therefore

how much they should get paid the

students were then told that before

handing in their report paper to the

researchers and getting paid that they

should shred their original work paper

the idea behind this is that by

shredding their work paper there's then

a stronger incentive for them to cheat

on the report paper and lie about how

many answers they got correct since the

researchers in theory should never know

how many answers they got right on the

work paper but what the students didn't

know was that the shredder at the back

of the room was not a normal Shredder

what the people in the experiment don't

know is that the shredder has been fixed

so the shredder only showed the sides of

the page but the main body of the page

remains intact now in order to test the

hypothesis of the researchers on the

reporting paper the participants were

split into two groups half of them had

an honesty pledge at the top of the

paper and half the planet honesty

pledged at the bottom of the paper with

the idea being of course that those who

sign the honesty pledge at the top would

then cheat less going forward so what

was the result well the result showed a

massive effect from this simple

intervention according to what was

published in the study originally for

the students who silently honestly

pledge at the top of the form only 37

percent of them lied but when students

signed at the bottom of the form 79 of

students lied this is a massive effect

size that the researchers are reporting

and as a result of that this study

gained a lot of public attention and I

have talked about it with many people in

the past before because it is so

surprising but that's why these

Vigilantes were suspicious the results

just seem a bit too good can it really

be the case that simply moving an

honestly pledge from the bottom to the

top of a form can have such a dramatic

effect on the amount of cheating that

happens it seems pretty unlikely so our

Vigilantes managed to Source the

original data set that was published by

the authors of the study and when they

looked into the data it just seemed a

little bit fishy if you look at this

table and specifically look at the left

hand column the P hash column this is

referring to participant ID this is the

unique ID given to each participant in a

study and as is highlighted in yellow

there are some weird anomalies in the

way that this data has been sorted

because when you look at this data it

seems obvious that this has been sorted

by first the condition so all of

condition 1 are together then all of

condition two are together and then in

ascending order of the participant ID

which means that the numbers should

consistently get bigger as you go down

the line and there should be no

duplicates remember each participant has

a unique ID so when you look at this

data it's a bit weird we've got 249s

here that's a duplicate that should

never happen and then at the end of the

condition one set of participants you

have participant 51 coming after 95 then

12 then 101 like that sequence doesn't

make any sense and similarly when you

get to condition two we start with 7

then 91 then 52 then all the way back

down to 5 again these entries in the

data set look suspicious they look like

they're out of sequence which suggests

that somebody maybe has tampered with

them so our Vigilantes are suspicious of

these rows so then you have to ask the

question why would the researchers want

to tamper with the data well it's

because they would want to show a bigger

effect than those actually seen in the

real data the more dramatic the effect

of the intervention is the more

surprising the result of the study is

and therefore the more likely it is to

get published in a top journal the more

likely it is that this will make a lot

of press headlines that they will get

lots of interviews and work off the back

of it and so there's a strong incentive

for the researchers to fudge the data a

little bit make the effect seem larger

than it really is and so that's what our

Vigilantes were looking for they wanted

to see if these suspicious rows in the

data set showed a bigger effect than the

normal data that wasn't suspicious and

sure enough that's exactly what they

found if you look at this graph the red

circles with the cross show the

suspicious data and the blue dots show

the unsuspicious data and as you can see

the circles with the red crosses are the

most extreme ones meaning that these few

data points are inflating the effect

size now the article goes on to show how

our Vigilantes did some very clever work

to unpack the Excel file that this data

was stored in and they were able to show

quite clearly that these suspicious rows

were manually resorted in the data set I

won't go into it on this video because

it's quite technical but I'll have a

link to all of these articles in the

description if you want to read them in

full but as you'll soon see this theme

of suspicious data and then there's data

showing extremely strong effect sizes

will be a recurring pattern so let's

move on to study two now this second

article is called my class year is

Harvard and you'll see why in a second

they're looking at a study from 2015

written by Francesca Gino as well as

kuchaki and golinski again two fairly

well-known researchers in the field now

the hypothesis for this study in my

opinion pretty stupid the hypothesis is

that if you argue against something that

you really believe in that makes you

feel dirty which then increases your

desire for cleansing products which is

kind of silly in my opinion but

nevertheless this is what they were

researching so this study was done at

Harvard University with almost 500

students and what they asked the

participants to do was the following so

students of Harvard University were

brought into the lab and then asked how

they felt about this thing called the

queue guide I don't really know what the

cue guide is but apparently it's a Hot

Topic at Harvard and it's very

controversial some people are for it

some people are against it so when they

were brought to the lab they were asked

how do you feel about the queue guide

and they either said they were for or

against it and then the participants

were split into two groups half the

participants were asked to write an

essay supporting the view that they just

gave so if they said I'm for the queue

guide they had to then write an essay

explaining why they were for the queue

guide but then half the participants

were asked to write an essay arguing

opposite to the point that they just

gave so if they said I'm for the queue

guide they would then have to write an

essay explaining why they should be

against the queue guide again the idea

being that those who are writing an

essay against what they actually believe

in would make them feel dirty because

after they'd written this essay they

were then shown five different cleansing

products and the participants in the

study had to rate how desirable they

felt these cleansing products were on a

scale of one to seven with one being

completely undesirable and seven being

completely desirable and again the

authors found a strong effect you can

see here that the p-value is less than

0.01. and for those of you who haven't

had any academic training and statistics

basically when you're doing a study like

this you're looking for a p-value that's

less than 0.05 that's the industry

standard if it's less than 0.05 you say

yes I'm confident that the effect that

I'm seeing is caused by the manipulation

that I just did so less than 0.1 is an

extremely strong effect you're basically

100 confident that what you're seeing in

the data is caused by the manipulation

that you did so once again our

Vigilantes are suspicious of this very

strong effect size so the managed to

Source the data online and do a little

bit of investigating and what they find

are some weird anomalies in the kind of

demographic data that the participants

have to give when they enter the study

and this is very common in psychological

studies that participants have to give a

little bit of demographic data about

themselves which gives the researchers a

little bit more flexibility about how

they cut up the data later on so in this

particular study the participants were

asked a number of demographic questions

including their age their gender and

then number six was what year in school

they were now the way this question is

structured isn't very good in my opinion

in terms of research design but

nevertheless there are a number of

acceptable answers that you can give to

you in school because Harvard is an

American School you might say I'm a

senior right which is a common thing or

a sophomore you might write the year

that you're supposed to graduate 2015

2016 Etc or you might indicate a one a

two a three or four or a five to

indicate how many years of school that

you've been in there these are all

different answers but they're all

acceptable and make sense in the context

of being asked what year in school are

you and so when our Vigilantes go into

the data that's exactly what they saw in

this column a range of different answers

that were all acceptable all except for

one there were 20 entries in this data

set where the answer to the question

what year in school are you was Harvard

that doesn't make any sense what year in

school are you Harvard

what right that doesn't make any sense

and the other thing that was suspicious

about these Harvard entries is that they

were all grouped together within 35 rows

again this was a data set of nearly 500

different participants and yet all of

these weird Harvard answers were within

35 rows so once again our Vigilantes

treat these Harvard answers as

suspicious data entries they mark them

in red circles with crosses and as you

can see the ones that are suspicious are

again the most extreme answers

supporting the hypothesis of the

researchers with the exception of this

one but come on it's most suspicious

when you look at the ones on argued

other side so these are the people who

wrote an essay arguing against what they

didn't believe in and therefore were

supposed to feel more dirty and find

cleansing products more appealing all of

these suspicious entries on that side of

the manipulation went for seven that

they found all of the cleaning products

completely desirable and so what are

Vigilantes go on to say is that these

were just the 20 entries in the data set

that looked suspicious because of this

Harvard answer to the demographic

question but who's say that the other

data in the data set was not also

tampered with but just they were more

careful when they filled in this column

and didn't put Harvard since it seems

pretty clear that at least these 20

entries were manipulated and tampered

with some way it probably means that

there are other entries within this data

set that were also tampered with are you

shocked yet I hope you are but it's

about to get worse because there's a

third article to do with Francesca Gino

so this third article was released

literally yesterday the day before I'm

filming this video and it's called the

cheaters are out of order this is

written by Francesca Gino and a guy

called wiltermuth I don't know

wiltermuth but again I find it

incredibly ironic that all of this

cheating and fake data is being

conducted by researchers who are

studying the science of honesty it is

incredibly ironic so in this third study

Gino and her co-author are investigating

the idea that people who cheat people

that lie who are dishonest are actually

more creative and they call the paper

Evil Genius how dishonesty can lead to

Greater creativity

really so let's quickly go through how

the study worked participants were

brought into a lab where they were sat

at a machine with a virtual coin

flipping mechanism what the participants

are asked to do is to predict whether

the coin will flip heads or tails and

then they would push a button to

actually flip the coin and if they had

predicted correctly about whether it

would go heads or tails then they would

get a dollar so again there's a strong

incentive to cheat so the participants

were right down on a piece of paper how

many predictions they got correct and

then they would hand that to the

researcher in order to get paid but then

of course the researchers would then go

back and look at the machine that they

were flipping the coin on to see how

many they actually got correct and then

they were able to tell how many times

that participant had cheated so after

they had completed the coin flipping

task they were then given a creativity

task and the creativity task was how

many different uses can you think of for

a piece of newspaper so in Psychology

this is a pretty common technique for

testing creativity you give somebody an

inanimate object and then you say how

many uses can you think of for this

inanimate object and again with this

study we see a very strong effect size

remember the magic number that academics

look for is p less than 0.05 and here we

have P less than 0.01 so basically what

that means is that there's an extremely

high likelihood that the effect that the

academics are seeing is caused by the

manipulation that they did so again our

Vigilantes are suspicious but this one

is interesting because our Vigilantes

were able to actually get the data set

from Geno several years ago so they got

this data set directly from Geno so

again when our Vigilantes look into the

data they find some weird things going

on as you can see it seems to be sorted

by two things firstly by the number of

times the participant cheated so all the

people who didn't cheat at all are zeros

and then the number of responses is the

number of different uses for a newspaper

that that participant could come up with

and those are clearly ranked in

ascending order but as you can see from

this next screenshot some of the

cheaters are out of order so these are

the people who cheated once who

basically over reported one time and the

number of uses that they could come up

with for the newspaper a route of

sequence here we have 3 4 13 then 9 and

then back down to five again then back

up to nine then five then nine and eight

the nine is just a total mess right so

these ones that are highlighted in

yellow are the suspicious ones they're

the ones that are out of order according

to how the data appears to have been

sorted so what our Vigilantes did was

they basically took this data set and

then made a new column and they called

it imputed low or imputed High what that

basically means is that rather than

taking the number of responses that are

written down in this original data set

they're going to say well where does

this entry sit in the ranking order and

so we're going to replace the value that

is given here with what the value should

really be so if it's between four and

five then that number should be either

four or five whether it's imputed low or

imputed high does that make sense so

once again our researchers plotted the

data suspicious entries are marked with

a circle and a cross and as you can see

the suspicious entries are the ones that

deviate from the pattern that you see in

the non-cheaters the blue line so in

other words the ones that are out of

order the suspicious entries they're the

ones showing the effect but when you use

the imputed position so that's the

number that is implied by the road that

the entry was in then suddenly the

entire effect disappears and the group

of cheetahs seem to show a very similar

pattern to the group of non-shooters and

the result of this statistically

speaking is significant remember the

original p-value for this study was P

less than 0.01 but once you use the data

that's implied by the row suddenly the

significance completely disappears it

then goes to P equals 0.292 or P equals

0.180 depending on whether you're

imputing low or high remember in order

for an academic study to be significant

the standard is p less than 0.05 and

here the p is clearly more than 0.05.

again this article goes on the

Vigilantes do a little bit more research

to really back up the point and really

drive home the fact that this data is

very suspicious I won't go into the

details now again all of these articles

are linked in the description go check

them out and you'll notice that these

were all called part one part two part

three and that's because this is

actually a four part Series so I'm

expecting doing a Fourth Article to come

out after this video is published

looking at yet another study from

Francesca Geno but I hope by this point

you get the picture there's a number of

studies conducted by Francesca Geno with

very suspicious looking data so at this

point you're probably wondering how did

Harvard allow this and the short answer

is well they don't really seem to have

done if you go on Francesca Gino's page

on the Harvard website it shows that

she's on administrative leave I think we

all know what that means and Harvard who

have even more access to Francesca

Gino's data than our Vigilantes do have

since asked for several of Francesco

Gino's papers to be retracted from the

journals that they were originally

published in now this is a bad look for

Francesca Gino right and we can't be

sure that it was Francesca Gino who was

doing this manipulation it could be one

of her co-authors but given that she's

the Common Thread between all of these

different papers it seems pretty likely

that it was her in the world of

psychology and writing good quality

academic papers this is really bad it's

not only bad for Francesca Gino but it's

bad for the field as a whole it casts

down over the entire field of Behavioral

Science because we we don't know the

extent of the damage that bad actors

like Geno have been causing in the field

and for how long like I said Francesca

Geno has been a prominent name in the

field for years gaining a position at

one of the top universities Harvard so

who's to say that this isn't a problem

that is Rife amongst many other

researchers in the field we certainly

hope not but you can't really know when

somebody's so high profile like this has

been engaging in this kind of behavior

for years and getting away with it it

also looks bad for people like me who

work in the industry who trust these

academics to publish good quality

research that we then use to try and

influence real world change in

businesses and government and so on and

so forth like I said I've used Geno's

work before to make recommendations to

my clients and I've recommended to you

guys to read Dan ariely's book the

honest truth about dishonesty in the

past a book which I no longer recommend

since the paper that was talked about in

the first article here is used heavily

as a reference for a lot of the claims

that Ariel is making in that book and

while it's tempting here to just

completely lay into Francesca Geno and

just you know really have a go at her

for this kind of bad behavior I actually

kind of understand why she did it right

if you're or an academic at a top

institution like Harvard you are under

an enormous amount of pressure to

publish surprising results and

consistently surprising results with big

effect sizes are more likely to get

published in top journals we need more

press interviews and basically cement

your position there at a top university

like Harvard so there is a strong

incentive for academics to fudge data

like this and come up with more

surprising results in order to try and

maintain their position I'm not

condoning the behavior in the slightest

it's completely unacceptable that an

academic would do this but I can

somewhat empathize that she's under a

lot of pressure and can see how the

incentives are working against the

practice of following good science but

what do you guys think of Francesca Gino

in all of this nonsense let me know in

the comments below please go read the

articles that are in the description

thank you to Yuri Joe and lay for

publishing This research you guys are

absolute Legends and Francesca Gino if

you're watching this video I know you

must be going through a really rough

time right now to have your sort of

entire career ripped away from you so

publicly like this while I think that

what you did is completely unacceptable

please don't do anything stupid with

your own life you're still a valuable

human being but thank you guys so much

for watching and I'll see you next time

bye