Scientists, like all humans, care about more than one thing in life. Scientists want to discover true or useful things about the world. But we are not indifferent to money, prestige, loyalty to friends and family, or other important things. How should scientists deal with situations where more than just our pure scientific ideals are on the line? In this episode we discuss conflicts of interest. What are conflicts of interest anyway? What are commonly occurring ones? Why does our field of psychology seem to have an underdeveloped set of norms and regulations for dealing with them? And how can and should we change to do better? Plus: We answer a letter about how little or how much guidance to give undergrads to develop their own research interests.
Links:
Understanding Financial Conflicts of Interest by Dennis Thompson
What (and Where) Is the Ethical Code Concerning Researcher Conflict of Interest? (ungated link) by Anthony Greenwald

The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license. Our logo was created by Jude Weaver.
This is episode 46. It was recorded on October 31, 2018.