Those concerned with protecting the Integrity of science generally focus on the serious but rare infractions of falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism (FFP). While the violations of FFP are clear threats to the quality of scientific work and public trust in science, are they the behaviors that researchers themselves find most troubling? Noticing that scientists seldom are asked to report their perceptions of the behaviors that pose problems for the enterprise of science, we conducted six focus groups with researchers from major research universities. A total of 51 scientists participated in our focus-group discussions, which lasted from 1.5 to 2 hours each. We found that while researchers were aware of the problems of FFP, in their eyes misconduct generally is associated with more mundane, everyday problems in the work environment. These more common problems fall into four categories: the meaning of data, the rules of science, life with colleagues, and the pressures of production in science. Focus on the "normal misbehaviors" that are part of the ordinary life of researchers allows us to see the way the organization of science generates both compliance and deviance from ethical norms.

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POLICYMAKERS CONCERNED ABOUT maintaining the integrity of science have recently expanded their attention from a focus on misbehaving individuals to characteristics of the environments in which scientists work. Little empirical evidence exists about the role of organizational justice in promoting or hindering scientific integrity. Our findings indicate that when scientists believe they are being treated unfairly they are more likely to behave in ways that compromise the integrity of science. Perceived violations of distributive and procedural justice were positively associated with self-reports of misbehavior among scientists.Keywords scientific misbehavior; integrity; organizational justice; procedural justice; distributive justice PROCEDURAL AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE are central concepts in the organizational justice literature (Bies & Tripp, 1998;Folger & Cropanzano, 1998;Greenberg, 1993;Greenberg, 1997;Masterson, Lewis, Goldman & Taylor, 2000;Moorman, 1991;Organ, 1988;Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bacharach, 2000;Skarlicki & Folger, 1997). When people regard the distribution of resources within an organization-and the decision process underlying that distribution-as Martinson is currently PI of two NIH funded R01 grants; a two-year, observational study of research integrity among scientists in the U.S. and a five-year study conducting a randomized, controlled trial of a behavioral intervention aimed at helping older adults to achieve long-term maintenance of their physical activity. E-MAIL: Brian.C.Martinson@HealthPartners.Com Dr. Melissa S. Anderson is an associate professor in the graduate program in higher education at the University of Minnesota. She is also the Director of the Postsecondary Education Research Institute, a center for research on higher education. Her current research focuses on ethical issues in university research, graduate education and academy-industry relations. She is a co-author of Ethical Standards of the American Educational Research Association: Cases and Commentary. E-MAIL: mand@umn.edu Dr. A. Lauren Crain is a Research Investigator with the HealthPartners Research Foundation (HPRF) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her current research activities pertain to the role of the self concept in prosocial behavior, psychological and environmental predictors of modifiable health risk behavior such as physical activity and weight maintenance, and the prevention and management of chronic disease. E-MAIL: Lauren.Crain@HealthPartners.Com Dr. Raymond G. De Vries is a member of the Bioethics Program, the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Department of Medical Education at the Medical School, University of Michigan. He is the author of A Pleasing Birth: Midwifery and Maternity Care in the Netherlands (Temple University Press, 2005). His current research is focused on the regulation of science; clinical trials of genetic therapies; international research ethics; and the social, ethical, and policy issues associated with voluntary cesarean section. E NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH...

NORMS OF BEHAVIOR IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH represent ideals to which most scientists subscribe. Our analysis of the extent of dissonance between these widely espoused ideals and scientists' perceptions of their own and others' behavior is based on survey responses from 3,247 mid- and early-career scientists who had research funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. We found substantial normative dissonance, particularly between espoused ideals and respondents' perceptions of other scientists' typical behavior. Also, respondents on average saw other scientists' behavior as more counternormative than normative. Scientists' views of their fields as cooperative or competitive were associated with their normative perspectives, with competitive fields showing more counternormative behavior. The high levels of normative dissonance documented here represent a persistent source of stress in science.

Despite rapid technical progress and demonstrable effectiveness for some types of diagnosis and therapy, much remains to be learned about clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) and its role within the practice of medicine. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) consortium includes 18 extramural research projects, one National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) intramural project, and a coordinating center funded by the NHGRI and National Cancer Institute. The consortium is exploring analytic and clinical validity and utility, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of sequencing via multidisciplinary approaches; it has thus far recruited 5,577 participants across a spectrum of symptomatic and healthy children and adults by utilizing both germline and cancer sequencing. The CSER consortium is analyzing data and creating publically available procedures and tools related to participant preferences and consent, variant classification, disclosure and management of primary and secondary findings, health outcomes, and integration with electronic health records. Future research directions will refine measures of clinical utility of CGES in both germline and somatic testing, evaluate the use of CGES for screening in healthy individuals, explore the penetrance of pathogenic variants through extensive phenotyping, reduce discordances in public databases of genes and variants, examine social and ethnic disparities in the provision of genomics services, explore regulatory issues, and estimate the value and downstream costs of sequencing. The CSER consortium has established a shared community of research sites by using diverse approaches to pursue the evidence-based development of best practices in genomic medicine.

This analysis, based on focus groups and a national survey, assesses scientists' subscription to the Mertonian norms of science and associated counternorms. It also supports extension of these norms to governance (as opposed to administration), as a norm of decision-making, and quality (as opposed to quantity), as a evaluative norm.

In the originally published version of this article, Table 1 unfortunately included c.542G>A instead of c.542G>T. This mutation was correctly notated as c.

Background Access to reliable information is critical to women’s experience and wellbeing during pregnancy and childbirth. In our information-rich society, women are exposed to a wide range of information sources. The primary objective of this study was to explore women’s use of information sources during pregnancy and to examine the perceived usefulness and trustworthiness of these sources. Method A quantitative cross-sectional study of Dutch women's experiences with various information sources during pregnancy, including professional (e.g. healthcare system), and informal sources, divided into conventional (e.g. family or peers) and digital sources (e.g. websites or apps). Exploratory backward stepwise multiple regression was performed to identify associations between the perceived quality of information sources and personal characteristics. Results A total of 1922 pregnant women were included in this study. The most commonly used information sources were midwives (91.5%), family or friends (79.3%), websites (77.9%), and apps (61%). More than 80% of women found professional information sources trustworthy and useful, while digital sources were perceived as less trustworthy and useful. Personal factors explain only a small part of the variation in the perceived quality of information sources. Conclusion Even though digital sources are perceived as less trustworthy and useful than professional and conventional sources, they are among the most commonly used sources of information for pregnant women. To meet the information needs of the contemporary generation of pregnant women it is essential that professionals help in the development of digital information sources.