Doctoral Dissertation Research: The File Drawer Problem

科学进步取决于科学家之间以及从科学家到公众之间不受阻碍的信息共享。然而，科学问题通常定义模糊，涉及不正当的制度激励，并促进科学家之间的竞争，以先于他人得出结论。由于这些功能，意外和不必要的结果是常见的，可能并不总是报告。如果信息不共享，科学家可能更容易重复彼此的错误，得出错误的结论，并对自己的结论过于自信。本文结合分析和实验来研究信息共享决策的推理过程，信息共享的有用性，以及信息共享失败的社会成本。这些问题的可能解决方案将在现场试验中进行测试。六个实验将在模拟科学环境中使用非专业参与者，以检查后见之明，制度激励，模糊性和竞争对他们的科学推理和共享信息的决定的影响。在前两个实验中，非专业参与者将获得实验的描述和结果，并必须评估研究的质量以及是否应该报告结果。一些参与者将被要求对结果进行前瞻性评价，而另一些参与者将被要求对结果进行事后评价。我们假设，参与者会得出结论，假设的实验是错误的，不应该报告时，他们不确认参与者？这种倾向在事后看来比在预见中更糟。在第二组实验中，参与者将解决科学家通常面临的三个挑战：不正当的激励，模糊性和竞争。当得出一个结论可以导致经济回报时，参与者很可能会将不证实的证据解释为错误，并决定不报告这些证据。模糊性和竞争可能会增强激励措施的这种反常效果。在最后一个实验中，前三个研究的参与者的试验历史将与一个新的参与者分享，他将尝试解决相同的规则。通过这些实验，我们可以研究有偏见的信息共享的推理和潜在的社会成本。

Scientific progress depends on unimpeded information sharing between scientists, and from scientists to the public. Scientific problems, however, are typically ambiguously defined, involve perverse institutional incentives, and promote competition between scientists to come to conclusions before others. As a result of these features, unexpected and unwanted results are common and may not always be reported. If information is not shared, scientists may be more likely to repeat one another's mistakes, reach false conclusions, and be overconfident in their conclusions. This dissertation combines analysis and experimentation to examine the reasoning processes underlying decisions to share information, the usefulness of information shared, and the social costs of failure to properly share information. Possible solutions to these problems will be tested in a field trial.Six experiments will use lay participants in simulated science environments to examine the effects of hindsight, institutional incentives, ambiguity, and competition on their scientific reasoning and decisions about sharing information. In the first two experiments, lay participants will be given descriptions and results of experiments and must evaluate the quality of the research and whether the results should be reported. Some participants will be asked to evaluate the results in foresight, whereas others will be asked to evaluate the results in hindsight. We hypothesize that participants will conclude that hypothetical experiments are in error and should not be reported when they disconfirm the participants? prior beliefs, and that this tendency will be worse in hindsight than in foresight. In a second set of experiments, participants will address three challenges that scientists commonly face: perverse incentives, ambiguity, and competition. When reaching a conclusion can lead to a financial payoff, it is likely that participants will interpret disconfirming evidence as error and decide not to report this evidence. Ambiguity and competition are likely to enhance this perverse effect of incentives. In a final experiment, the trial history of participants from these first three studies will be shared with a new participant who will try to solve the same rule. With these experiments it is possible to examine the reasoning and potential social cost of biased information sharing.