Overview
Research is traditionally associated with universities. Indeed, universities publish the lion’s share of academic research. However, for-profit companies also conduct research, focusing more on practical applications.
Interestingly, research from both universities and corporations have faced scrutiny in recent years, with concerns about reproducibility and conflicts of interest driving the skepticism. But overall, universities are still conventionally thought to be more trustworthy in the research domain, given their lack of incentives and conflicts of interest—at least, so the theory goes.
In this study, we undertook a comparative exploration of the general public’s perceptions of research credibility, specifically between universities and corporations. Is one perceived to be more credible than the other?
The Experiment
We designed a randomized survey experiment and recruited 400 participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk to take part. Participants were presented with a research finding, which was randomly attributed to either a university or a corporation, specifically the University of Minnesota or 3M Company. Participants read the following statement:
The following claim may or may not be true:
A research study from [the University of Minnesota / 3M Company] suggests that mindfulness meditation can reduce work stress.
A research study from [the University of Minnesota / 3M Company] suggests that mindfulness meditation can reduce work stress.
After reading the research finding, participants were asked, "How strongly do you believe this research finding is true? (1 = Not at all, 7 = Very much),” and responded using a 1-7 survey scale. Participants also responded to a demographic survey, which enabled us to test whether the results differ by age, gender, or political affiliation. For example, perhaps those with right-leaning political beliefs are more likely to believe corporate research, whereas liberal participants may favor research universities.
Results
Our analysis revealed no significant difference in research believability between the study attributed to the university (avg. = 5.90) and the study attributed to the corporation (avg. = 5.73) (p = 0.159). Both research studies were rated highly believable, possibly due to the increased attention given to mindfulness meditation research. Finally, no interaction effects were found for age, gender, or political beliefs (p = 0.193).
Conclusion
Research credibility does not seem to differ much based on whether the findings come from a university or a corporation. Both types of research were perceived as equally believable by the participants in this study.
Of course, this was only one study that used only one university, one corporation, and one research finding. Although we've found no difference in research believability between different universities, the results may differ when considering a sugar study by Coca-Cola.
Perceptions aside, it will always be essential to address and mitigate conflicts of interest in both corporate and academic settings to maintain the integrity and reliability of research. The public needs it now more than ever.
References
Kearns CE, Schmidt LA, Glantz SA. (2016). Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents. JAMA Internal Medicine. 176(11):1680–1685.
Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251).
Methods Note
We used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis to test for significant differences in believability between the company and university research conditions. For significant differences, the coefficient would be large, and its corresponding “p-value” would be small. If the p-value is less than 0.05, we consider the difference statistically significant. The survey materials and data for this experiment are available upon request.