The results presented here suggest that competition among researchers haspronounced effects on the way science is done. It affects the progress of sciencethrough secrecy and sabotage and interferes with peer review and other universal-istic merit-review systems. It twists relationships within a field and can increase thelikelihood of a scientist engaging in misconduct. None of the focus-groupparticipants made reference to positive effects of competition on their work,despite the fact that the focus-group questions dealt in a general way with scientists'work and the norms of conduct that govern that work. If the protocol questions hadasked explicitly about competition, doubtless there would have been somediscussion about the positive aspects of science. In the context of the generalquestions, though, the scientists referred to competition as a constant and negativeforce that interferes with the way science is done. It is disconcerting to ponder theconsequences of competition, such as mistrust and defensive posturing, for acommunity that has long been committed—in principle—to shared ideas andcollegiality.
By contrast, others use it in thepublication process solely to maintain their competitive bid for priority in a line ofresearch inquiry, as a way to sabotage others' progress. A scientist in an early-career group acknowledged the need to make results reproducible by telling people''the whole recipe of the whole method'' if asked directly, but then she talkedabout the ''little trick'' of not including all the details in a publication orpresentation. Like the scientists in a different group quoted above, she mentionedothers' practice of taking photographs of poster presentations in order then topublish the results first. She said that people, in defense, ''omit tiny little details'':''But sometimes in the publication, people, just to protect themselves, will not giveall the details. It's always right, but maybe it's not totally complete—to protectthemselves. Because your ideas get stolen constantly, and it's so competitive ifyou're a small lab.
A more deliberate form of not sharing is the omission of critical details inpresentations, papers and grant proposals so that others will have difficultyreplicating and extending one's own research.
Economic structure of competition at universities.
Theirdiscussions suggest clearly that the downside of competition has been underesti-mated and that it may have more prominent effects now than in past years. Asreputation, respect and prestige are increasingly connected to resources and tosuccess in the competitions that distribute those resources, scientists find more oftheir work and careers caught up in competitive arenas. The six categories ofcompetition's effects that emerged in our analyses suggest reason for concern aboutthe systemic incentives of the U.S. scientific enterprise and their implications forscientific integrity.
Implications of competition for scientific integrity.