How open data can facilitate the detection of fraudulent research

In 2013, Uri Simonsohn noticed some abnormalities in a published study by Lawrence Sanna and his colleagues. The study, which claimed to answer the question “Does higher physical altitude lead to more prosocial behavior?,” seemed to have very little variability for such a small sample size. In this video, I’ll take you through Simonsohn’s technique for determining that it was highly unlikely that the data presented in this paper were from a real experiment. The results of Simonsohn’s study were so striking that it led him to re-visit many of Sanna’s other papers. Watch the video to see what he found.