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Does psychology have a conflict-of-interest problem?

Some star psychologists don’t disclose in research papers the large sums they earn for talking about their work. Is that a concern?
  1. Tom Chivers

    1. Tom Chivers is a science journalist based in London.

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Illustration by Sébastien Thibault

Generation Z has made Jean Twenge a lot of money. As a psychologist at San Diego State University in California, she studies people born after the mid-1990s, the YouTube-obsessed group that spends much of its time on Instagram, Snapchat and other social-media platforms. Thanks to smartphones and sharing apps, Generation Z has grown up to be more narcissistic, anxious and depressed than older cohorts, she argues. Twenge calls them the ‘iGen’ generation, a name she says she coined. And in 2010, she started a business, iGen Consulting, “to advise companies and organizations on generational differences based on her expertise and research on the topic”.

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Nature 571, 20-23 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02041-5

References

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