Psychologist falsifies research

According to a recent Wikipedia article, “Diederik Alexander Stapel (born in Oegstgeest, 19 October 1966) is a former professor of social psychology at Tilburg University and before that at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. In 2011 Tilburg University suspended Stapel, pending further investigation, for admittedly fabricating and manipulating data for his research publications. This scientific misconduct lasted for years and affected at least 30 publications.”

Stapel worked in the field of behavioral science, and managed to behave pretty badly on his own admission. He voluntarily returned his Ph.D to the University of Amsterdam; meanwhile, Tilburg University is conducting an extensive review of his research and publications. So far, it has been found that Stapel made up the data for at least 30 publications in such places as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Science magazine.

Natural News stated that, “There is no indication, however, that Stapel will be held criminally liable for his disturbing actions, or even that his studies will be withdrawn from the journals in which they were published. Bruce Alberts, editor-in-chief of Science, wrote in an “expression of concern” on the online edition of the journal that “the extent of the fraud by Stapel is substantial.”

While grotesque, this behavior is hardly surprising or unusual in a field largely dominated by fraud and false data. How many other psychologists and psychiatrists are presenting falsified research?

Big Pharma has regularly manipulated the published data on psychiatric drugs, for example.

“In 2008, research showed that pharmaceutical companies systematically failed to publish negative studies on their SSRIs, the Prozac generation of antidepressants. Of 74 clinical trials, 38 produced positive results and 36 did not: 94 per cent of the positive studies were published, but only 23 per cent of the negative ones were, and two-thirds of those were spun to make them look more positive.” [Read the full report on this here.]

The psychiatric and psychological industries are also prone to inflate statistics of mental trauma in order to justify more funding. In September 2001, a U.S. Senate hearing on “Psychological Trauma and Terrorism” was told that, “Seventy-one percent of Americans said that they have felt depressed by the [9/11] attacks.” It’s a worrying statistic, until one realizes that the survey was conducted during the six days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when Americans were, naturally, in a state of shock. The survey sampled 1,200 people only, which, by some quantum leap, led to the conclusion that nearly three-quarters of Americans were mentally damaged, requiring “professional” help.

As experience has shown that there are many criminal mental health practitioners, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights has developed a database at www.psychcrime.org that lists people in the mental health industry who have been convicted and jailed. Many have appeared in the news for fraud or abuse. Read the article about Stapel there as well.

Tags: Fraud, psychology

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