26-05-2025
Harvard fires professor for fabricating research on dishonesty
Harvard University fired a professor after finding that she fabricated research used in studies on dishonesty.
Francesca Gino, a star business professor at the Ivy League, was stripped of her title this past week after Harvard administrators informed business faculty of their decision, GHB reported.
An investigation into her work was launched in 2023 after a trio of data bloggers - Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson and Joe Simmons - presented what they said was evidence of academic fraud in four studies co-authored by Gino, noting that they also 'believe that many more Gino-authored papers contain fake data.'
Gino was a rising professional at Harvard and her behavioral research studies relating to cheating, lying and dishonesty received widespread media coverage over the past decade.
But questions about her work first emerged regarding a 2012 study she co-authored, which purported to show that making people sign an honesty pledge at the beginning of a form, rather than the end, increases honest responses.
That study was retracted in 2021 over apparent data fabrication by a different researcher who worked on the project, which cited three separate lab experiments to draw its conclusion.
About four years later, an internal investigation found that Gino manipulated data to support her findings in at least four of her studies.
The prestigious university said it hadn't stripped a professor of their tenure in decades and did not comment further on the announcement, per The Daily Beast.
An investigation into her work was launched in 2023 after a trio of data bloggers presented what they said was evidence of academic fraud in four studies co-authored by Gino
When the investigation first took shape in 2023, Gino took to her personal website denying the claims against her.
'There is one thing I know for sure: I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data to produce a particular result,' it reads.
'I did not falsify data to bolster any result. I did not commit the offense I am accused of. Period.'
After accusations started to spread, Gino was placed on administrative leave.
The journal Psychological Science also retracted two articles by Gino, saying it had acted on the recommendation of the Research Integrity Office at Harvard Business School (HBS).
In both cases, the journal said an independent forensic firm engaged by HBS had discovered 'discrepancies' between the published data sets and earlier data sets from Gino's behavioral experiments.
Separately, Harvard requested that the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology withdraw a third study by Gino, and the journal's publishers plan to retract the article in the September 2023 issue, the Financial Times reported.
The two studies recently retracted by Psychological Science were a 2015 paper titled 'The Moral Virtue of Authenticity: How Inauthenticity Produces Feelings of Immorality and Impurity' and a 2014 paper titled 'Evil Genius? How Dishonesty Can Lead to Greater Creativity.'
The 2020 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which is slated for retraction was titled 'Why Connect? Moral Consequences of Networking with a Promotion or Prevention Focus.'
The paper titled 'Evil Genius' involved five separate lab experiments with human volunteers, who were given the opportunity to behave dishonestly by overreporting their performance on various tasks, and then measured on creative tasks.
The article purported to demonstrate that 'acting dishonestly leads to greater creativity in subsequent tasks,' according to the original abstract.
In August 2023, Gino fired back at the school and went on to file a $25 million lawsuit alleging she was the target of a 'smear campaign.'
The 100-page legal filing, submitted to Massachusetts federal court, claimed Harvard and the three data scientist bloggers defamed her with false claims of academic fraud.
I want to be very clear: I have never, ever falsified data or engaged in research misconduct of any kind,' Gino said.
In her suit, Gino insisted that any anomalies in the spreadsheets may have simply been the result of research assistants entering data manually from paper worksheets, a process naturally prone to human error.
Gino's suit went on to accuse Harvard of using an unfair and biased process to investigate the data fraud allegations, saying the university 'ignored exculpatory evidence' and created a new policy for researching academic fraud claims that applied only to her.
The suit also accused the school of defamation, breach of contract, bad faith and gender discrimination, claiming that Gino's male colleagues who faced similar accusations were treated completely differently.
'Harvard's complete and utter disregard for evidence, due process and confidentiality should frighten all academic researchers,' Gino's attorney Andrew T. Miltenberg previously told
'The University's lack of integrity in its review process stripped Prof. Gino of her rights, career and reputation – and failed miserably with respect to gender equity,' he added.
Once a superstar in the world of behavioral research, Gino had been lavished with awards and press coverage for her buzzy research, and was among Harvard's most highly paid faculty members, raking in an annual salary of more than $1 million.
She was featured in a TedX Talk in April 2021, titled: 'The Power of Why: Unlocking a Curious Mind.'
Since accusations around her came to light, people started to attack her in the comment section of the YouTube video.
'Why truly is an excellent question. Like "Why did you fake that data?" and "Why do you think it was ok to lie to so many people?,"' one wrote.
'Thanks for this video with a dishonesty expert, who can contribute invaluable practical experience to the subject matter of dishonesty,' said another.
Gino was also a keynote speaker at the Bologna Business School's 2018 graduation.
