Medical scientists are stricter while natural, social and humanities scientists are more permissive. The attitude to ethically problematic ways of conducting research differs clearly between disciplines, according to a study from Linköping University, Sweden.
The Linköping researchers have examined the research community’s attitudes through a survey of more than 11,000 researchers active in Sweden. The background to the study is the sometimes harsh public debate about research credibility.
On a seven-degree scale, the participants were asked to rate their attitude to everything from clear forms of cheating to research practices that are more in the grey area. The results are presented in the journal Research Policy.

There is a general agreement that it is wrong to fabricate results or plagiarise the work of others. But even research in the grey area is generally seen as unacceptable. However, the degree to which we distance ourselves differs between research areas. Medical scientists have a clearly stricter attitude than colleagues in the social sciences and humanities. Above all, they view behaviours that involve a lack of respect for individuals and society more seriously.
“This is interesting because previous studies, where researchers themselves had to state what they actually do in practice, show that deviations from good research practice is more common in medicine. The number of articles withdrawn is also highest in medicine. It points to a potential tension between attitude and practice,” says Amanda Lindkvist, PhD student in the interdisciplinary research group Jedilab at the Division of Economics at Linköping University.

The survey shows that social scientists and humanities scientists are not so strict mainly when it comes to so-called open science. For example, they are more lenient with researchers not sharing data or not giving advance notice of how a study is organised, so-called pre-registration. The purpose of open science is to increase research transparency and hence research credibility.

The differences between research fields could be explained by traditions, the LiU researchers suggest. The field of medicine has long had formal ethical rules in place. But there may also be good reasons for researchers in the humanities and social sciences to sometimes make ethical judgments differing from those of medical researchers. For example, it may be considered unethical to openly share data collected through interviews or field notes. This is because participants in a study could then be identified.

The survey has also been sent to members of Swedish research ethics committees. It turns out that they are stricter in their attitudes than the researchers themselves, no matter what discipline they are set to examine. The differences raise questions about how a research ethics system should actually be designed, according to the LiU researchers. Can – and should – the same ethical rules apply to all research fields?
But the greatest variation in ethical attitudes lies not between disciplines, but between individuals within the same field, the study shows. Even in medicine – the most restrictive area – there are significant differences in how researchers assess different practices.

“Although research field affiliation is important for how to assess questionable research practices, there are other factors that also come into play, such as one’s individual moral stance,” says Assistant Professor Lina Koppel at Jedilab, Linköping University.