Greitemeyer Tobias, Sagioglou Christina
University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
PLoS One. 2015 May 13;10(5):e0126316. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0126316. eCollection 2015.
Scientific misconduct appears to be on the rise. However, an accused researcher may later be exonerated. The present research examines to what extent participants adhere to their attitude toward a researcher who allegedly committed academic misconduct after learning that the researcher is innocent. In two studies, participants in an exoneration and an uncorrected accusation condition learned that the ethics committee of a researcher's university demanded the retraction of one of the researcher's articles, whereas participants in a control condition did not receive this information. As intended, this manipulation led to a more favorable attitude toward the researcher in the control compared to the exoneration and the uncorrected accusation conditions (pre-exoneration attitude). Then, participants in the exoneration condition learned that the researcher was exonerated and that the article was not retracted. Participants in the uncorrected accusation and the control condition were not informed about the exoneration. Results revealed that the exoneration effectively worked, in that participants in the exoneration condition had a more favorable attitude (post-exoneration attitude) toward the researcher than did participants in the uncorrected accusation condition. Moreover, the post-exoneration attitude toward the researcher was similar in the exoneration and the control conditions. Finally, in the exoneration condition only, participants' post-exoneration attitude was more favorable than their pre-exoneration attitude. These findings suggest that an exoneration of an accused researcher restores the researcher's credibility.
科研不端行为似乎呈上升趋势。然而，被指控的研究人员后来可能会被证明无罪。本研究调查了参与者在得知研究人员无罪后，在多大程度上坚持他们对一名被指控有学术不端行为的研究人员的态度。在两项研究中，处于无罪释放和未纠正指控条件下的参与者得知该研究人员所在大学的伦理委员会要求撤回该研究人员的一篇文章，而处于控制条件下的参与者没有收到此信息。正如预期的那样，与无罪释放和未纠正指控条件相比（无罪释放前的态度），这种操纵导致处于控制条件下的参与者对该研究人员的态度更积极。然后，处于无罪释放条件下的参与者得知该研究人员被证明无罪，文章也未被撤回。未纠正指控条件和控制条件下的参与者未被告知该研究人员被证明无罪的消息。结果显示，无罪释放有效地起了作用，即与未纠正指控条件下的参与者相比，处于无罪释放条件下的参与者对该研究人员的态度更积极（无罪释放后的态度）。此外，无罪释放条件和控制条件下对该研究人员的无罪释放后的态度相似。最后，仅在无罪释放条件下，参与者无罪释放后的态度比他们无罪释放前的态度更积极。这些发现表明，被指控研究人员的无罪释放恢复了该研究人员的信誉。
