Fear of being exploited is stagnating our progress in science, say researchers

Phys.org  June 27, 2023
Knowledge hiding in academia—the reluctance to share one’s ideas, materials, or knowledge with other researchers—is detrimental to scientific collaboration and harms scientific progress. In three studies, researchers in Germany tested whether (a) knowledge hiding could be predicted by researchers’ latent fear of being exploited (i.e., victim sensitivity), whether (b) this effect was mediated by researchers’ suspiciousness about their peers, and whether (c) activating researchers’ social identity alleviated or rather amplified this effect. Study 1 showed that victim-sensitive researchers whose social identity as a “researcher” had been made salient were particularly prone to knowledge hiding. Study 2 helped explain this effect: activating a social identity increased obstructive self-stereotyping among researchers. Study 3 replicated the effect of victim sensitivity on knowledge hiding via suspiciousness. However, the effects of the same social identity activation were less straightforward. Together, these findings suggested that knowledge hiding in science can be explained by victim sensitivity and suspiciousness, and that making researchers’ social identity salient might even increase it in certain contexts… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE