Herding, social influences and behavioural bias in scientific research

Abstract

The mission of scientific research is to understand and to discover the cause or mechanism behind an observed phenomenon. The main tool employed by scientists is the scientific method: formulate a hypothesis that could explain an observation, develop testable predictions, gather data or design experiments to test these predictions and, based on the result, accept, reject or refine the hypothesis. In practice, however, the path to understanding is often not straightforward: uncertainty, insufficient information, unreliable data or flawed analysis can make it challenging to untangle good theories, hypotheses and evidence from bad, though these problems can be overcome with careful experimental design, objective data analysis and/or robust statistics. Yet, no matter how good the experiment or how clean the data, we still need to account for the human factor: researchers are subject to unconscious bias and might genuinely believe that their analysis is wholly objective when, in fact, it is not. Bias can distort the evolution of knowledge if scientists are reluctant to accept an alternative explanation for their observations, or even fudge data or their analysis to support their preconceived beliefs. This article highlights some of the biases that have the potential to mislead academic research. Among them, heuristics and biases generally and social influences in particular, can have profoundly negative consequences for the wider world, especially if misleading research findings are used to guide public policy or affect decision‐making in medicine and beyond. The challenge is to become aware of biases and separate the bad influences from the good. Sometimes social influences play a positive role—for example, by enabling social learning. Condorcet's “jury principle” is another example of the power of collective wisdom: the collective opinion of a jury—in which each individual juror has just a slightly better than average chance of matching the correct verdict—is more likely …