Division of General Medical Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine, 4523 Clayton Avenue, Campus Box 8005, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1125, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2018 Apr;24(2):361-391. doi: 10.1007/s11948-017-9876-4. Epub 2017 Mar 20.
Successfully navigating the norms of a society is a complex task that involves recognizing diverse kinds of rules as well as the relative weight attached to them. In the United States (U.S.), different kinds of rules-federal statutes and regulations, scientific norms, and professional ideals-guide the work of researchers. Penalties for violating these different kinds of rules and norms can range from the displeasure of peers to criminal sanctions. We proposed that it would be more difficult for researchers working in the U.S. who were born in other nations to distinguish the seriousness of violating rules across diverse domains. We administered a new measure, the evaluating rules in science task (ERST), to National Institutes of Health-funded investigators (101 born in the U.S. and 102 born outside of the U.S.). The ERST assessed perceptions of the seriousness of violating research regulations, norms, and ideals, and allowed us to calculate the degree to which researchers distinguished between the seriousness of each rule category. The ERST also assessed researchers' predictions of the seriousness that research integrity officers (RIOs) would assign to the rules. We compared researchers' predictions to the seriousness ratings of 112 RIOs working at U.S. research-intensive universities. U.S.-born researchers were significantly better at distinguishing between the seriousness of violating federal research regulations and violating ideals of science, and they were more accurate in their predictions of the views of RIOs. Acculturation to the U.S. moderated the effects of nationality on accuracy. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of future research and education.
成功驾驭社会规范是一项复杂的任务，需要识别各种不同的规则以及它们之间的相对重要性。在美国，不同类型的规则——联邦法规和规章、科学规范以及专业理想——指导着研究人员的工作。违反这些不同类型的规则和规范的后果从同行的不满到刑事制裁不等。我们提出，在美国出生的研究人员要区分不同领域违反规则的严重程度会更加困难，因为他们来自不同的国家。我们对美国国立卫生研究院资助的研究人员（101 名在美国出生，102 名在国外出生）进行了一项新的测试，名为评估科学规则任务（ERST）。ERST 评估了研究人员对违反研究规定、规范和理想的严重程度的看法，并允许我们计算出研究人员区分每种规则类别的严重程度的程度。ERST 还评估了研究人员对研究诚信官员（RIO）对规则的严重程度的预测。我们将研究人员的预测与在 112 名在美国研究型大学工作的 RIO 的严重程度评分进行了比较。在美国出生的研究人员在区分违反联邦研究规定和违反科学理想的严重程度方面明显更胜一筹，他们对 RIO 观点的预测也更加准确。对美国的文化适应调节了国籍对准确性的影响。我们根据未来的研究和教育讨论了这些发现的意义。
