Effect of medical researchers’ creative performance on scientific misconduct: a moral psychology perspective

BMC Medical Ethics

Research

Zhen Xu¹  Mingxuan Guo²  Na Zhang²  Chunhua Jin² 

[1] Medical College, Hebei University of Engineering, Guangming South Street 199, 056038, Handan, Hebei Province, China;School of Economics and Management, Beijing Information Science & Technology University, No. 12 Qinghe Xiaoying East Road, Haidian District, 100192, Beijing, China;

关键词: Creative performance;    Scientific misconduct;    Moral licensing;    Moral identity;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12910-022-00876-8

 received in 2022-09-30, accepted in 2022-12-14,  发布年份 2022

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn recent years, some researchers have engaged in scientific misconduct such as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism to achieve higher research performance. Considering their detrimental effects on individuals’ health status (e.g., patients, etc.) and extensive financial costs levied upon healthcare systems, such wrongdoings have even more salience in medical sciences. However, there has been little discussion on the possible influence of medical researchers’ existing creative performance on scientific misconduct, and the moral psychological mechanisms underlying those effects are still poorly understood.MethodsWe build a moderated mediation model to test how medical researchers’ creative performance affects their scientific misconduct and explore the role of moral licensing and moral identity in this process. Based on situational experiments and projection techniques, 287 medical researchers in China participated in a survey.ResultsMedical researchers’ creative performance positively relates to scientific misconduct, and moral licensing plays a mediating role in the relationship between them. In addition, moral identity has a negative moderating effect on the mediating effect of moral licensing on creative performance and scientific misconduct.ConclusionMoral licensing plays a fully mediating role in the relationship between creative performance and scientific misconduct. And moral identity negatively moderates the indirect effect of creative performance on scientific misconduct through moral licensing. The findings provide theoretical and practical implications for the prevention of medical researchers’ scientific misconduct.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2022

【 图 表 】

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