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32 - The Conflict Entailed in Using a Post Hoc Theory to Organize a Research Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

Thomas S. Wallsten
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Susan T. Fiske
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
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Summary

Kerr (1998) discusses in a very thorough and thoughtful manner the ethical dilemma that I faced many years earlier in seeking to bring a research report (Wallsten, 1976) to publication. Kerr called it HARKing, hypothesizing after the results are known. HARKing can take many forms, some of which are more egregious than others, but the essence of it is that a hypothesis, explanation, or theory developed to explain a data set or a pattern of results is introduced as motivating the experiment in the first place. Kerr (1998) documents the fact that in recent years at least some authors and research mentors have suggested, if not actually encouraged, putting ex post facto hypotheses at the front of the paper for a host of possible reasons, including that the paper becomes more readable.

We are (or at least, were) trained from graduate days on – actually for many of us, from undergraduate days on – not to present empirical research as support for a theory that grew from that very research. In broad outline form, the scientific method entails deducing predictions from theory and then testing them in an experiment. The theory accrues support if its predictions are sustained. Other possible outcomes are that the data provide partial support for the theory and the basis for revision or that they disconfirm it altogether, ideally simultaneously suggesting a new theory or perspective. The revisions or new theory are tested in a new experiment and the cycle continues. This is a very gross characterization of the ....-deduction-inference-deduction-inference-.... chain that links theory development and testing, but it captures the very important point that theories gain support on the basis of the outcomes of experiments designed to test them. It is misleading and a gross violation of scientific principles to develop an explanation for a set of data and then to present that data as supporting the explanation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ethical Challenges in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Case Studies and Commentaries
, pp. 94 - 97
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

Kerr, N. L. (1998). HARKing: Hypothesizing after the results are known. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 196–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krantz, D. H., Luce, R. D., Suppes, P., & Tversky, A. (1971). Foundations of measurement, Vol. I. Additive and polynomial representation. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wallsten, T. S. (1972). Conjoint-measurement framework for the study of probabilistic information processing. Psychological Review, 79, 245–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallsten, T. S. (1976). Using conjoint-measurement models to investigate a theory about probabilistic information processing. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 14, 144–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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