67 - Whoever Pays the Piper Calls the Tune

Summary

The integrity of science requires transparency and freedom from interests other than the search for knowledge. A challenge to insulating the scientific enterprise from external influence is that the source of research funding tends to correlate with a study’s findings and authors’ interpretations of their findings. This “funding effect” (Krimsky, 2013) has been well documented, with a focus on the influence of for-profit/industry funders. Yet in psychological science, a comparable threat comes from ideological interests. This case study captures the potential influence of the ideological funding effect on psychological science.

The Ethical Challenge

Several years ago I was asked to serve as action editor for a journal article that reviewed and integrated several research areas. The authors’ interpretation of the evidence and its implications for public policy was quite controversial. The reviewers took issue with several of the authors’ interpretations, and in a revision, the authors addressed my concerns and those of the reviewers. Because there were several relatively minor issues that needed to be addressed in a second revision, I accepted the manuscript for publication pending these minor changes, but with the caveat that after accepting the final version, I would invite a commentary.

The final version of the manuscript was satisfactory. Howerver, I noticed that this version included an acknowledgment of a source of funding that had not appeared in previous versions.