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Scientists should be open about their mistakes

Nature Human Behaviour volume 5, page 1593 (2021)Cite this article

Discovering an error that leads to retraction is a harrowing experience, especially for early-career researchers. Joana Grave shares the story of the retraction of her first published paper and how community support helped her through this challenge.

Just a few minutes before, I had been preparing to submit a manuscript. Suddenly, I noticed something weird in the results and decided to check the original database. And there it was: an error. An error that would end up having a strong impact in our results. Fortunately, the error was systematic, so we would be able to fix it and correct the manuscript. But my relief was quickly replaced by utter shock as I realized the error had also affected our previous study, published in 2017 in Psychiatry Research.

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  1. William James Center for Research & Center for Health Technology and Research, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Joana Grave

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  1. Joana Grave
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Correspondence to Joana Grave.

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Grave, J. Scientists should be open about their mistakes. Nat Hum Behav 5, 1593 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01225-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01225-2

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