

US behavioural research studies skew positive - feelthepain
http://www.nature.com/news/us-behavioural-research-studies-skew-positive-1.13599

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dkarl
As a culture we now assume that everyone is supposed to act as their own
personal sales and marketing department. You aren't even a complete human
being unless you do [1].

We also take it for granted that marketing involves a certain amount of
exaggeration and deception, and that anyone taken it by dishonest marketing
only has themselves to blame, as long as the dishonesty is kept within certain
culturally accepted limits that keep getting stretched further and further
[2]. Maybe some advertising can get away with honesty, but that's the
exception, and it's arrogant to think you're exceptional [3].

In other words, lying about ourselves is now culturally expected.

Perhaps in the next generation, an unwillingness to aggressively sell yourself
will be seen as just as sad and self-defeating as not completing high school.
_How do these poor kids not see how dropping out of school affects their life?
It 's so tragic,_ we think now. _Just sit in the classroom and do your work._
Perhaps in twenty years we'll be lamenting the stubborn inability of
disadvantaged kids to exaggerate their achievements. _How can these poor kids
just sit around doing their schoolwork and not sell themselves aggressively?
It 's so tragic. Just smile manically and say you're an awesome, passionate
rock star. Is that so fucking hard to understand? What are parents teaching
these days? Shit, we should really be funding Head Start._

[1] [http://www.danpink.com/books/to-sell-is-
human/](http://www.danpink.com/books/to-sell-is-human/)

[2] This link might not have much substance, but it's slick and vivid:
[http://geekologie.com/2012/01/bogus-burgers-fast-food-
false-...](http://geekologie.com/2012/01/bogus-burgers-fast-food-false-
advertisin.php)

[3] Honesty in advertising is such an unthinkable idea that it has been
relegated to the place our culture reserves for statements that are so false
we cannot imagine anything falser, the bogus trend piece:
[http://www.steamfeed.com/is-the-next-frontier-in-
advertising...](http://www.steamfeed.com/is-the-next-frontier-in-advertising-
becoming-honesty/)

~~~
freehunter
Off topic, but talking about truth in advertising: on your second link,
there's a link at the bottom talking about a mummy made from McDonald's
burgers that will never deteriorate. I'm tired of seeing this incredibly
misleading claim that _this_ is the reason the burgers are unhealthy.

Cooked and salted meat is, in essence, incredibly well preserved. This concept
has been known since ancient times. Bacteria requires moisture to cause
decomposition, and cooking/salting meat causes it to dry faster than it will
rot. Once it's dried, it pretty much won't deteriorate any more. This is the
concept behind pemmican and beef jerky.

The point is, there may be misleading advertisements, but this argument isn't
any less disingenuous than the Big Mac that's too big to fit in a box.

~~~
dkarl
First, criticizing a link on a link, really?

Second, I think you missed my point that a set of well-produced pictures of
unknown provenance (really, could you figure out the source? I gave up after
several clicks) is a more effective way of _selling_ my point than providing
substantive information would be.

~~~
freehunter
Oh no, I wasn't criticizing you or your link. I was just trying to add to the
discussion that misleading advertisements are a problem, but there's plenty of
misleading propaganda on the other side as well.

Nothing against your point at all. Sorry for the confusion.

------
tokenadult
Professor Uri Simonsohn wasn't mentioned in this particular article, but he
could have been. He has published several peer-reviewed papers on "p-hacking"
and "researcher degrees of freedom" and other tricks that are used (and can be
detected after the fact with careful statistical analysis of published papers)
to inflate the significance of behavior research results. His faculty website

[http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/](http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/)

includes links to many of his papers. Not only are Simonsohn's papers a good
lesson in how to use statistics to detect sloppy research practices, they are
also often laugh-out-loud funny.

------
pfraze
We should be skeptical of this study, though. From my experience, behavioral
researchers tend to exaggerate their findings.

~~~
jameshart
Half expected to find Douglas Hofstadter credited on the paper abstract. A US
Scientist publishing a paper making the claim that US scientists exaggerate
their findings is on the same continuum as guards who always tell lies and
gramophones that play records that destroy themselves.

------
wahsd
Can confirm. Just like with many other types of research. It's part of our
culture to exaggerate and be deceptive. It is how our politics, our
government, our culture, our business, and how our economy as a whole
function. Before I get a bunch of "everyone does it", the reality is that
those who we should aspire to compare ourselves to are quite remarkably
different regarding that characteristic. But go right ahead, compare America
to all the dysfunctional, corrupt, fraying societies of the world. I choose to
look up, rather than down.

Edit: I would like to point to the following story in the HN feed regarding
Germany's election as a point of reference that things don't have to be the
way that we think they are.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6283280](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6283280)

------
droithomme
It's interesting how the title of the article is an example of the phenomenon
itself. Study finds US research is more likely to be wrong, and a US based
journal reports this as "skew positive": they are just more optimistic, that's
all.

~~~
duwease
I do think it's important to note that they're generally wrong in the same
direction.. they tend to be overly positive, not overly negative (or an even
mix of both). That particular skew is more likely to implicate the "publish or
perish" incentive system as the culprit than the other two.

------
mathattack
My first thought on seeing the title was, "There must be a behavioral basis to
this."

I'm interested in how much of this is ethics, a push to get more drastic
results, or what is accepted by journals. The last case can be very true too -
if there are too many journal submissions, it may be puffery on the referees
instead of the publishers.

One way to test this is to see if there is a difference in the results from
tenured versus untenured professors, or even in individuals post-tenure. If
puffery shrinks post-tenure, then it really is the publish or perish mindset.

------
ekurutepe
In my experience as a european ex-PhD researcher, this is not only US and not
only behavioural studies.

Authors are under pressure to publish as much as they can, and positive
results are not only easier to publish on journals but also provide good
deliverables for research grant review committees and help show that funding
was well spent. Not to mention a good reference for the next research
proposal, showing that money will be well invested.

------
smtddr
<tinfoilhat>

I've never believed otherwise. This is why when I'm debating an issue with
someone and they throw up research papers and claim "See? science says so!", I
don't really know what to say. I don't think issue is specific to behavior-
related studies either. I highly suspect USA's science data when it's related
to something that makes lots of money or promotes a certain predominant view
point. _Not to say it doesn 't happen in other countries_, but we're talking
about USA right now. Specifically things like:

\- Studies show corn syrup not harmful

\- Studies show cellphones don't cause cancer

\- Studies show 1 in 2 children need meds for ADD

These are not exact quotes, just giving a general idea. I suspect these things
because if they turn out not to be true, millions of dollars to some big corp
entity somewhere would be lost. Or maybe they need science-data to justify
their funding. There's just too much money tied up in scientific results to
trust they haven't been tampered with. What I like to see, is when many
countries do studies and they all come up with similar results.

</tinfoilhat> EDIT: Yeah, I see this getting downvoted but I stand by what I
said. Science is influenced by money a great deal these days; you should
reserve a little bit of skepticism for scientific results that have close ties
to supporting a belief required for bigcorp to keep making money.

~~~
bpodgursky
You're getting downvoted because

\- You just made up article titles to prove your point.

\- You call out the USA for no particular reason, because your arguments apply
equally to other countries.

\- You don't provide any alternative to "science", which according to you is
inherently flawed, which makes pretty much any discussion with you pointless.

~~~
smtddr
Okay, fair enough. let me clarify:

\- Those points I used are real arguments being made today. I don't have exact
quotes/links, but they do exist. There are people who believe those 3 items
are perfectly correct. I admit item#3 is a bit of an exaggeration, but there
is an alleged issue of over-diagnosis of ADD. I'm not saying they're wrong,
but just saying to keep in mind that there is a lot of money that would be
lost if those 3 things were to be discovered false.

\- I called out the USA because this article is about the USA. Also I noted in
_italics_ that I wasn't saying it was only USA.

\- Indeed, I don't have any alternative. Though I did mention I like the idea
of multiple countries doing the study to see if everyone reaches the same
conclusion. I'm just saying there is something to be said for a bit of
skepticism. We know how long it took for science to decide tobacco was bad for
you. It wasn't like they didn't know before, it just took a long time to push
past the greed & corruption that kept the data hidden. Just saying to always
keep a critical mind with these things. Afterall, this article here is calling
out exactly what I'm claiming.

EDIT: And I see my original comment has been upvoted out of the graveyard
during my commute to work, so I guess there are people who agree with what I'm
trying to say.

~~~
tensor
I am skeptical, which is why I don't put much value in your comment. Want to
convince me that corn oil is bad or that cell phones cause cancer?

Cite proper studies on these things, and don't cherry pick results you like,
give me a fair sampling of all research. If the data supports your claim, I'll
believe it.

------
plg
US research findings are America Strong

