Instances of Scientific Misconduct | Lawrence Sanna

Lawrence Sanna

Lawrence Sanna, a former professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, faced retractions due to unreliable data, irreproducible results, and falsification/fabrication of data. His work was centered around psychology and sociology; he destroyed his careers at many universities (such as the University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, and Washington State University) due to the multiple investigations into his scientific fraud. His retractions came out of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, which affected up to three co-authors. The work that was retracted was called, “When thoughts don’t feel like they used to: Changing feelings of subjective ease in judgments of the past,” “Rising up to higher virtues: Experiencing elevated physical height uplifts prosocial actions,” and “Think and act globally, think and act locally: Cooperation depends on matching construal to action levels in social dilemmas.”

Does Exonerating an Accused Researcher Restore the Researcher’s Credibility? (PMC, May 13, 2015)

“Fraud committed by any social psychologist diminishes all social psychologists”: New Sanna, Smeesters retractions (Retraction Watch, January 8, 2013)

“Invalid data” prompt retraction of another paper from psychologist Sanna (Retraction Watch, September 24, 2013)

Psychology professor with potentially unsound research resigns (The Michigan Daily, July 16, 2012)

PSYCHOLOGIST’S RESIGNATION THROWS RESULTS INTO QUESTION (Pacific Standard, June 14, 2017)

Real problems with retracted shame and money paper revealed (Retraction Watch, September 10, 2013)

Retraction eight appears for social psychologist Lawrence Sanna (Retraction Watch, January 11, 2013)

RETRACTION OF THE WEEK – SANNA’S “ODD STATISTICS” (Orthopedics, July 16, 2012)

The broken escalator; or, can you ever really retract a paper? (The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 2012)

The Data Vigilante (The Atlantic, December 2012)

Uncertainty shrouds psychologist’s resignation (Nature, July 12, 2012)

University of Michigan professor resigns amid questions about his research (The Ann Arbor News, July 13, 2012)