How honest is the author of "The Truth about Dishonesty," Dan Ariely?

May 29, 2013 3:04 PM

My wife and I have been reading and enjoying Ariely's books, but we're a little skeptical. Many of his study results seem a bit too spectacular. Some studies produce dramatic surprises. All of which, of course, makes for great entertainment. Can you tell me whether, in general, others have duplicated his study results? What kind of reputation does he have among behavioral researchers?
posted by markcmyers to Science & Nature (4 answers total)

Best answer: I am an academic in a technical field that has nothing to do with economics. But I have heard of him in an academic context. Also he has over 12000 citations to his academic work. You don't want to take this too seriously---maybe I'm not the most well informed guy on the planet, maybe people just really really like to talk about how bad he is---but it lends some credence that he's a serious academic and perhaps something of a big shot.

Whether he's honest, I can't tell you. After all, the disgraced psychologist Diederik Stapel had a lot of citations too (sadly I don't know how many, he has no Google Scholar page, I don't suppose we could convince him to make one now?).

But as for Ariely, why not just ask him? He has an advice column for the Wall Street Journal: [e-mail]. If you pose the question in an entertaining and respectful way---you're not actually accusing him of dishonesty, but you're just wondering how you could possibly even know---I think there's a good chance he'd publish it.
posted by sesquipedalian at 3:50 PM on May 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I'm a little too close to this to answer objectively, but as an off-and-on acquaintance of Dan's over the years I agree that if you find a good-humored way to ask the question that puts it in his wheelhouse, I suspect he'd want to answer it. The basic question, I think, is, how do you tell the difference between Dan and Jonah Lehrer, when they both basically receive (well, received until recently) the same press? This is a question that I can tell you drives many honest-to-goodness researchers up the wall, which makes it perfect question bait.
posted by range at 4:40 PM on May 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I'm also a Friend of Dan (we should start a club!) and agree that he might find it interesting to figure out how one develops a framework for assessing honesty while maintaining healthy skepticism. Ask!
posted by judith at 4:48 PM on May 29, 2013

Best answer: I took a class as a senior psychology major in college in which we read one of Dan Ariely's books (The Upside of Irrationality) and then spent some time discussing the research he uses to support his claims. The basic conclusion that we came to was that at least in that book, he isn't inaccurate in how he describes studies, but he is telling a story more than giving a complete picture of his research results. The part of the discussion section of any psych paper that talks about the drawbacks of the paper and the plans for future study are probably not going to be emphasized. The facts aren't wrong, but you might draw different conclusions from him if you saw the whole body of evidence for a question and not just what he's choosing to present.

It's basically the same as any popular (social) science book- no one wants to read about how results are mixed, further study is needed, a larger sample size, different populations... on an airplane.

Also, and this might really answer your question: he makes many of the papers he cites in his books available on his website. Read a passage from one of his books and then read the actual paper, and see what you think.
posted by MadamM at 6:22 PM on May 29, 2013 [3 favorites]