Psychologist Accused of Fraud on Astonishing Scale Essay

Psychologist Accused of Fraud on Astonishing Scale - Essay Example Some of the consequences of the detected fraud involve criminal charges, penalties, researchers being barred from publishing their works. For undetected fraud, there is always wrong documentation of data and information that can create a problem for other researchers and to the whole society. The acts of fraud can also lead to wrong policies being implemented. According to Nemeroff & Craighead, (2002), scientific fraud is counterfeiting information or changing and altering data in order to maintain certain results. Sometimes scientific fraud includes biased evaluation of results and changing affecting data. Under the context of scientific fraud, there is illegal ownership of information that should be attributed to other persons or individuals. Scientific fraud can be generated from personal bias in order to achieve certain targets where the calculations and observation are manipulated way far from the actual target. Scientific fraud is mainly caused by perceived pressure to continuously achieve at a high level and sometimes laziness among the scientific researchers. The fraudulent act the researcher committed is a fabrication (Vogel, 2011). The researcher manipulated the research data and process in order to suit and reflect certain end product. He might also have committed the actual drafting of research data which do not reflect the exact outcome. Some of the consequences of fraud in research include sanctions such as preventing future publication of material from the offending authors in case of journals, disciplining authors and notifying outside funding sources so that they can stop funding the authors and Pressing of criminal charges against those who commit the fraud. To the extreme cases, they can be banned from practicing their profession. If undetected, there will be wrong documentation of research data and research reports.