163. The Data Sleuth Taking on Shoddy Science

Uri Simonsohn is a behavioral science professor who wants to improve standards in his field — so he’s made a sideline of investigating fraudulent academic research. He tells Steve Levitt, who's spent plenty of time rooting out cheaters in other fields, how he does it.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Uri Simonsohn, professor of behavioral science at Esade Business School.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Gino v. President and Fellows of Harvard College," (Court Listener, 2025).
  • "Statement from Dan Ariely," (2024).
  • "Data Falsificada (Part 4): 'Forgetting The Words,'" by Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons (Data Colada, 2023).
  • "They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie?" by Gideon Lewis-Kraus (The New Yorker, 2023).
  • "Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Field Experiment About Dishonesty," by Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons (Data Colada, 2023).
  • "Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient anddecreases dishonest self-reports in comparison tosigning at the end," by Lisa Shu, Nina Mazar, Francesca Gino, Dan Ariely, and Max Bazerman (PNAS, 2021).
  • "Power Posing: Reassessing The Evidence Behind The Most Popular TED Talk," by Uri Simonsohn and Joe Simmons (Data Colada, 2015).
  • "Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are," by Amy Cuddy (TED, 2012).
  • "Daily Horizons: Evidence of Narrow Bracketing in Judgment from 10 Years of MBA-Admission Interviews," by Uri Simohnson and Francesa Gino (Psychological Science, 2012).
  • "Spurious? Name similarity effects (implicit egotism) in marriage, job, and moving decisions," by Uri Simohnson (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011).
  • "False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant," by Joe Simmons, Leif Nelson, and Uri Simohnson (Psychological Science, 2011).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Will We Solve the Climate Problem?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2025).
  • "Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
  • "When I'm Sixty Four," by The Beatles (1967).

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