Diederik Alexander Stapel (born 19 October 1966) is a Dutch former professor of social psychology at Tilburg University.^[1] In 2011 Tilburg University suspended Stapel for fabricating and manipulating data for his research publications. This scientific misconduct took place over a number of years and affected dozens of his publications.^[2][3] By 2015, fifty-eight of Stapel's publications had been retracted.^[4] He has been described in coverage by the New York Times as "the biggest con man in academic science".^[5]

Early life

Stapel was born in the village of Oegstgeest, near Leiden, the youngest of four children. His father worked as a civil engineer.^[5][6]

After completing his schooling, Stapel studied drama and media studies at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania before moving back to the Netherlands for an undergraduate degree in psychology.^[5] Stapel obtained an M.A. in psychology and communication science in 1991 from the University of Amsterdam (UvA). From the same university he obtained his PhD cum laude in social psychology in 1997; his dissertation was on assimilation and contrast effects.^[1] Before embarking on his PhD, in 1991–1992, Stapel returned to the US for study, undertaking a program on behavioral decision making at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.^[7]

He married in 1997; Stapel and his wife had first met in high school.

Career

After gaining his PhD, Stapel continued at UvA as a fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) for three years.^[8] Stapel became a professor at the University of Groningen in 2000^[1] and moved to Tilburg University in 2006, where he cofounded TiBER, the Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research.^[1] In September 2010, Stapel became dean of the social and behavioral sciences faculty.^[1]

Stapel received the Career Trajectory Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology in 2009, which has since been retracted.^[9] He voluntarily surrendered his PhD title to the University of Amsterdam in November 2011, noting that his "behavior of the past years are inconsistent with the duties associated with the doctorate". This action was taken into account in the decision of Dutch prosecutors to not pursue criminal actions.^[10]

Scientific misconduct

Investigations

In September 2011, Tilburg University suspended Stapel due to his fabrication of data used in research publications. The university announced an investigation of his work.^[11][12]

On 31 October 2011, a committee entrusted with investigating "the extent and nature of the breach of scientific integrity committed by Mr D.A. Stapel", formed by the Rector Magnificus of Tilburg University and chaired by Willem ("Pim") Levelt, published an interim report regarding Stapel's activities at the three Dutch universities where he had worked.^[13]

Stapel provided the investigating committees with a list of his publications that contained fictitious data, acknowledging that it may not be complete.^[13]

An extensive report analyzes all 130 of Stapel's articles and twenty-four book chapters.^[14] A website was set up on 27 March 2012 to publish interim findings.^[14][15][16] According to the first findings, out of an initial batch of twenty Stapel publications studied by the Levelt committee, twelve journal articles were fabricated and three contributions to books were also fraudulent.^[14][17] The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reported that the final report was due on 28 November 2012, and that a book by Stapel was to be released around the same time.^[18]

"We have some 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals where we are actually sure that they are fake, and there are more to come," Pim Levelt, chair of the committee investigating Stapel's work said in a media statement.^[19]

Suspicions raised

The Levelt joint committees' reports acknowledged three unnamed young Tilburg University researchers as the whistleblowers for the case. The whistleblowers had become suspicious when one noticed anomalous data they had received from Stapel. Subsequent discussion with Stapel did not allay their concerns. The three spent several months conducting their own enquiries using data files Stapel had supplied. Once they felt they had sufficient evidence, they approached the head of the Department of Social Psychology, Marcel Zeelenberg. The students' evidence was convincing enough that Zeelenburg brought it directly to the rector magnificus, Philip Eijlander. Official investigations were set in motion within days by Tilburg University, which were soon joined by the UvA and the University of Groningen.^[5][20]

The Levelt report also noted two professors who claim they had previously seen examples of Stapel's data that were "too good to be true."^[13]

Methods

Stapel controlled the data in his lab: when students asked to see the raw data, they were often given excuses.^[21] There were occasions when Stapel's data were given to an assistant to be entered into a computer. This assistant would then return the data file to Stapel. The researcher analyzing the data would then receive the file directly from Stapel.^[13]

Curiosity regarding datasets was discouraged by Stapel and, at times, persistent or perceptive questioning would be met with apparent hostility. In one case the Levelt committee reports, a PhD student who was querying unusual data was told by Stapel: "If you want to be taken on here you will have to demonstrate that you can get something finished, so just write up the results." Several PhD students told the investigation that they had been pressured into silence by Stapel's untoward use of his power over them.^[22]

As his process for fraudulent research developed, by his Tilburg years his general method was to formulate in full all the elements of a proposed study – an experiment, with its theoretical grounding, the hypotheses, methods, stimuli, questionnaires, and even participants' rewards – and then create the fictitious data which he would then provide to colleagues and students for further analysis. He would pretend to run the experiments with the help of unnamed research assistants. Instead of doing so, he would make up the data. A plausible explanation would be offered for excluding others from data collection. For example, several experiments were to be run in schools; Stapel made it known that he had access to these by special arrangements which would be endangered by involving other researchers. The purported schools preferred to deal with Stapel alone, whom they knew and trusted and would be bothered by having additional, unknown researchers involved.^[23] Earlier in his career, going back at least to 2004, rather than faking data, the investigations found he appears to have manipulated data —for example, by simply altering numerals in the recorded outcome measures, so that the calculated means of scores for the contrasted experimental conditions would appear to differ, in support of his tested hypothesis.^[24]

Stapel's supply of pre-collected data to his graduate students was noted as being atypical for masters students and PhD candidates, but was presented by Stapel as an advantage to them, which they did perceive as helpful and even a luxury.^[25] This process, even apart from the fraudulent data, was inappropriate, with most of the students graduating without ever actually completing an experiment.^[13]

Stapel's scientific misconduct went undetected for at least fifteen years. The Levelt report concludes that his academic reputation was, in part, the reason his illicit activities were able to continue for such a length of time. At Tilburg he was considered a leading researcher with a high profile both in academic psychology and in the popular media in the Netherlands. His colleagues and students generally viewed him positively. The report says he had a reputation as being "charismatic, friendly and incredibly talented".^[26] Many students became his personal friends.^[5]

Findings

On 28 November 2012, the final joint report, from the three investigating committees, was published.^[26]

The interim report concluded that Stapel falsified or fabricated data for at least 30 publications.^[13] When the final report was released, that number had risen to fifty-five. They were unable to determine whether Stapel fabricated or manipulated data for his 1997 dissertation at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), because the data had been destroyed, in common with data for much of Stapel's earlier work. The university announced that it would investigate whether it would be possible to retract Stapel's PhD because of exceptionally unworthy scientific behavior.^[27][28][29]

The interim report stated that Stapel had caused severe damage to young people at the beginning of their careers, as well as to the general confidence in science, in particular social psychology.^[13] The University of Tilburg announced that it would pursue criminal prosecution of Stapel.^[30]

Despite being critical of an overarching shortfall in collective academic responsibility, the investigating committees emphasized that Stapel acted alone in all cases of known misconduct. The report found no indication that any coauthors, PhD students, or others were aware of the fradulent conduct. The reports did suggest that the data were in some instances so unusual that suspicion may have been reasonable.^[31] The interim report names 19 theses prepared with data delivered by Stapel. Of those, seven have been cleared. There are various degrees of suspicion about the remaining twelve. The report advised that the degrees of the students involved should not be retracted.^[32]

Prosecution settlement

In June 2013 Stapel agreed, in a settlement with the prosecutor, to perform 120 hours of community service and to lose the right to some benefits associated with his former job equivalent to a year and a half's worth of salary. In this way, he avoided further criminal prosecution.^[33][34]

Reaction

Stapel response

Responding to the interim report, Stapel stated:^[35][a]

I have failed as a scientist, as a researcher. I have manipulated research data and faked studies. Not once, but several times, not for a short period, but over a longer period of time. I realize that by this behavior I have left my immediate colleagues bewildered and angry and have put my field of study, social psychology, in a bad light. I'm ashamed of that and I deeply regret it. ... it is important to emphasize that I never informed my colleagues of my inappropriate behavior. I offer my colleagues, my PhD students, and the complete academic community my sincere apologies. I am aware of the suffering and sorrow that I caused to them ...

In his memoirs published in November 2012, Stapel admits his fraud, but protests against the accusation in the interim report that he was a cunning, manipulative fraud with a plan.

In academia

In a review for the Association for Psychological Science's Observer, Stapel's Ontsporing ('Derailment'), a book-length memoir, is described by Dutch psychologists Denny Borsboom and Eric-Jan Wagenmakers as "revealing". In the work, Stapel recounts that his transgressions began when he was sitting alone in his office and changed "an unexpected 2 into a 4". The reviewers suggest the memoir may provide insights into systemic failures within research science, saying that in his account of the affair, "Stapel appears to underscore the conclusions from the Levelt committee" in this regard. On their reading, there are also the personal frailties that contributed to the fraud on show: They call it a "... a captivating book, even as it is transparently self-serving. On a personal level, it is an emotional account of a fraudster's insecurities, fears, and self-hatred."^[36] The reviewers describe the final chapter of the book as "unexpectedly beautiful" but consider that many of its lines are "copied" from the works of writers Raymond Carver and James Joyce, without due acknowledgement.^[37] Borsboom and Wagenmakers reviewed the Dutch language edition; the English translation of Stapel's Ontsporing by Nicholas J. L. Brown includes a note regarding "Chapter 10 ½":^[38]

This last chapter is my own reinterpretation of some of the final lines of Raymond Carver's poem "The Gift" (from the collection Ultramarine, 1986, Random House, New York), into which I have also woven a couple of lines from the ending of James Joyce's story "The Dead" (from The Dubliners, 1990, Bantam Classics, New York). The title of the chapter is a reference to the chapter entitled "Parenthesis" in Julian Barnes's novel The History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters (1989, Jonathan Cape, London).

— Diederik Stapel (2016). Appendix, Faking Science

Withdrawn publications

Retraction overview

By December 2015, Retraction Watch reported that Stapel had 58 retracted publications, including journal articles and book chapters. This total number of retractions still stands as at 2023^[update].^[4] These are listed in the table below:

Chapters in edited books

Several chapters written or coauthored by Stapel in reference books were called into question in the Flawed Science report. The Levelt committee noted fraud in three chapters in academic books, each listed with the note: "Theoretical article, in important respect based on fraudulent articles"; they regarded the evidence in these cases sufficient to conclude "fraud established".^[40] One of these chapters was subject to a formal retraction notice in the academic press and is included in Retraction Watch's database. The three chapters are listed in the table below:

The Noort committee, examining publications stemming from Stapel's time at the University of Groningen, also considered a number of book chapters in edited works suspect. In the case of these works, having less surviving original data available to examine, the Noort committee concluded with less certainty only "evidence of fraud". In the Flawed Science report they note the following chapters, under the heading: "The following book chapters are (partly) based on findings of articles, in which the Committees have found evidence of fraud:"^[42]

• —    (2001). "Let's not forget the past when we go to the future: On our knowledge of knowledge accessibility effects". In Moskowitz, G. B. (ed.). Cognitive social psychology: The Princeton symposium on the legacy and future of social cognition. Mahwah NJ, U.S: Lawrence Erlbaum. pp. 229–246. [Coauthored].
• —  (2003). "Making sense of hot cognition: Why and when description influences our feelings and judgments". In J. P Forgas; K. D. Williams; W. von Hippel (eds.). Social judgments: Implicit and explicit processes. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 227–250. (Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology series).
•     —  (January 2001). "What's on our mind and how did it get there? The role of knowledge accessibility in social psychological phenomena". In Abraham Tesser; Norbert Schwarz (eds.). Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Intraindividual Processes. Wiley. pp. 236–256. [Coauthored].

"Coping with chaos"

The first journal article retraction occurred a month after Tilburg University announced that it had found evidence of fraud in Stapel's work. In December 2011, the journal Science posted a retraction notice for Stapel's co-authored paper entitled "Coping with chaos: How disordered contexts promote stereotyping and discrimination".^[43] The journal expressed initial concern regarding the paper's validity on 1 November.^[44][45] The retraction statement in Science says:^[46]

Our report "Coping with chaos: How disordered contexts promote stereotyping and discrimination" reported the effects of the physical environment on human stereotyping and discriminatory behavior. On 31 October 2011, the University of Tilburg held a press conference to announce findings of their investigation into possible data fraud on the part of author Stapel. These findings of the university's interim report included fabrication of data in this Science paper. Therefore, we are retracting the paper, with apologies from author Stapel. Coauthor Lindenberg was in no way involved in the generation of the data, and agrees to the retraction of the paper.

Following the retraction, coauthor of the "Chaos" paper, Siegwart Lindenberg, told the journal in an email, "Stapel's doing had caught me as much by surprise as it did anybody else. I never had any suspicion. He was a very trusted man, dean of the faculty, brilliant, successful, no indications for me to be distrustful. In this, I was not the only one. I also had no trouble with the results of the experiments."^[44]

Selfishness in carnivores

The research result, obtained by Stapel and co-workers Roos Vonk and Marcel Zeelenberg, that carnivores are more selfish than vegetarians, which was widely publicized in Dutch media,^[47] was suspected and later turned out to be based on falsified data.^[48] The research result had not yet been published in a scientific journal; only a press bulletin was released.^[49]

Other publications

• Stapel, Diederik (November 2012). Ontsporing ('Derailment'). Prometheus Books ISBN 90-446-2312-5
  • English translation as a free download in PDF format
• Dautzenberg, A. H. J.; Stapel, Diederik (September 2014). De fictiefabriek. Een bevrijdingsroman in brieven ['The Fiction Factory. A Liberating Epistolary Novel']. Atlas Contact. (in Dutch) ISBN 978-90-254-4269-9