Who Believes in the Storybook Image of the Scientist?

ABSTRACT

Do lay people and scientists themselves recognize that scientists are human and therefore prone to human fallibilities such as error, bias, and even dishonesty? In a series of three experimental studies and one correlational study (total N = 3,278) we found that the “storybook image of the scientist” is pervasive: American lay people and scientists from over 60 countries attributed considerably more objectivity, rationality, open-mindedness, intelligence, integrity, and communality to scientists than to other highly-educated people. Moreover, scientists perceived even larger differences than lay people did. Some groups of scientists also differentiated between different categories of scientists: established scientists attributed higher levels of the scientific traits to established scientists than to early-career scientists and Ph.D. students, and higher levels to Ph.D. students than to early-career scientists. Female scientists attributed considerably higher levels of the scientific traits to female scientists than to male scientists. A strong belief in the storybook image and the (human) tendency to attribute higher levels of desirable traits to people in one’s own group than to people in other groups may decrease scientists’ willingness to adopt recently proposed practices to reduce error, bias and dishonesty in science.

KEYWORDS:

• Bias
• fallibility
• integrity
• RCR
• scientists

Ethics statement

This line of studies was approved by the psychology ethics (PETC) of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences under number EC-2014.09. Respondents provided informed consent by ticking “yes” at the statement “I have read and understood the above and agree to participate” on the introductory page of the studies.

Acknowledgments

We thank Jolanda Jetten, Melissa Anderson, Marjan Bakker, Paulette Flore, Hilde Augusteijn, Michèle Nuijten, and Robbie van Aert for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Funding

This research was supported by The Innovational Research Incentives Scheme Vidi from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (grant number 452-11-004) (http://www.nwo.nl/en). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by The Innovational Research Incentives Scheme Vidi from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (grant number 452-11-004) (http://www.nwo.nl/en). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the article.