[IACM List] Fwd: Science of Honesty Funding Initiative
Taya Cohen
tcohen at cmu.edu
Wed Aug 26 07:57:54 MDT 2020
Dear IACM colleagues,
Last month I shared a pre-announcement about our upcoming funding
competition on the science of honesty. Our project website
<https://honestyproject.philosophy.wfu.edu/>is now live. Information about
the RFP can be found in the section labeled Funding: The Science of Honesty
<https://honestyproject.philosophy.wfu.edu/rfp-the-science-of-honesty/>.
Through this RFP, we hope to inspire scholarly work on and around five "Big
Questions" about honesty.
- What is the definition and value of honesty in its moral and
intellectual forms? What are the behavioral and motivational requirements
for being honest or exceptionally so?
- To what extent are people honest? How does this vary by culture?
- What contextual and internal factors encourage honesty and shape its
development in individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions?
- What are the consequences of honesty and dishonesty for relationships,
groups, organizations, and institutions?
- Under what conditions is dishonesty justified, if any? What factors
lead people to be receptive to or offended by honesty?
Will Fleeson, Mike Furr, Eranda Jayawickreme, and I are serving as project
leaders of the science of honesty funding competition. Christian Miller is
the PI and Project Director of the honesty project and leading the
philosophy of honesty funding competition. Tobias Flattery is serving as
the grant manager.
The RFP is provided below for your reference. Please direct questions about
the grant to: honesty at wfu.edu.
We look forward to receiving your proposals!
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Taya R. Cohen, PhD <https://tepper.cmu.edu/tcohen>
Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior & Theory
Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business
+1 (412) 268-6677
Collaboration and Conflict Research Lab
<https://www.cmu.edu/tepper/faculty-and-research/research/collaboration-conflict/index.html>
---------------------------------------------------------
Funding: The Science of Honesty
Fellowship Announcement and Description
Wake Forest University, with the help of a very generous grant from The
John Templeton Foundation, welcomes proposals for the “The Honesty Project”
funding initiative. We aim to support scholars working on the study of
honesty, especially early career-scholars who often have new and
interesting ideas but who have not yet benefited from traditional funding
sources. However, more senior investigators are also strongly encouraged to
apply.
This $1.4 million dollar RFP is aimed at empirical studies designed to
identify the determinants of honesty, the requirements for honesty, the
degree to which people are honest, the consequences of honesty for
relationships, groups, organizations, and institutions, and the reception
of honesty. Proposals can request between $50,000 and $200,000 for projects
not to exceed two years in duration. We hope to make 7 to 10 awards.
We welcome empirical projects from all scientific fields. We particularly
envision applicants from psychology (personality, social, and
developmental), organizational behavior, economics, and political science
in particular, but other fields as well. Interdisciplinary teams of
psychologists working with faculty in other disciplines, especially
philosophy, are encouraged (but team-based proposals are not required).
Fellowship Directors: William Fleeson, R. Michael Furr, and Eranda
Jayawickreme, Wake Forest University, and Taya Cohen, Carnegie Mellon
University.
Background
We frequently have the opportunity to lie, cheat, steal or mislead others.
Yet it seems clear that honesty is very important. By acting honestly with
others, we show respect for others and demonstrate that we value their
autonomy. Honesty promotes trust and credibility, and prevents harm. It
fosters healthy relationships, and strengthens organizations and societies.
Hence, there is little controversy that honesty is a virtue (at least in
most situations) and that it is important to a good society.
People can value being honest in their lives for many diverse reasons.
Honesty promotes true belief and knowledge. True belief is of high
intrinsic value, and one of the strongest ways to get true belief is for
people to be honest. Functioning societies require honesty in most of their
members. Every kind of relationship, from friendship to marriage to
business to law, requires honesty to function well. This is because all
relationships and interactions require making oneself vulnerable to others,
and making oneself vulnerable to others requires trusting that the others
will act in a certain way. This trust requires the general presumption that
the others are being honest about their beliefs, intentions, and so forth.
Honesty also promotes better relationships by creating understanding,
closeness, and trust.
Honesty is also important because people have the right to make their own
decisions based on as much knowledge as is available to them. Withholding
knowledge from them is denying them this right. Finally, it is inconsistent
to lie. When you lie, you are hoping that the recipient will believe you
and will thereby be deceived. However, if everyone lies routinely, or even
only you lie routinely, then no one will believe you and no one will be
deceived.
Big Questions to be addressed in this funding competition
We hope to inspire work on this virtue by focusing on five Big Questions:
1. What is the definition and value of honesty in its moral and
intellectual forms? What are the behavioral and motivational requirements
for being honest or exceptionally so?
2. To what extent are people honest? How does this vary by culture?
3. What contextual and internal factors encourage honesty and shape its
development in individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions?
4. What are the consequences of honesty and dishonesty for
relationships, groups, organizations, and institutions?
5. Under what conditions is dishonesty justified, if any? What factors
lead people to be receptive to or offended by honesty?
What is the Virtue of Honesty?
The term ‘honest’ can apply to a variety of different objects. One object
is an *action*, another object is *mental activity*, and a third object is
a *trait.* All three of these are possible foci of study in funded projects.
Most centrally, ‘honesty’ as an action is meant to refer to telling the
truth as the person sees it at the moment. As a mental activity, ‘honesty’
is meant to refer to avoiding self-deception, attempting to find the truth,
attempting to be fair in evaluating information, valuing truth, and being
motivated to be honest. As a trait, ‘honesty’ is meant to refer to
relatively consistent individual differences in the degree of enacting
honest behaviors and engaging in honest mental activities. Because
‘honesty’ is a morally-relevant term, we see honesty in this sense as a
*virtue*.
However, the scope of honesty is open to broader conceptions in this
competition. Honesty can be extended readily to include lack of deception.
Honesty may also be extended to include cases of following rules vs
cheating, respecting ownership vs stealing, and keeping promises.
At this point, we are hesitant to provide an extensively developed
characterization of honesty that has to be accepted by all the RFP
applicants. Indeed, one of the main goals of the project is to gain greater
clarity about what honesty is in the first place. For this, we want
researchers to think expansively rather than having to follow a prescribed
detailed definition. At the same time, we do see the value in giving a
general or ‘thin’ characterization of honesty that should govern the work
of all the scholars involved in the project. This characterization, we
suggest, is that honesty is concerned with being truthful in thought and
action. For instance, misleading others or being a liar demonstrates a lack
of concern with being truthful. We are open to projects that do not
directly study truthfulness, as long as they explain how they relate to
honesty as truthfulness.
Application Instructions
Letters of Intent are due by November 9, 2020. We will review these letters
of intent and invite a portion of the applicants to submit a full proposal.
We plan to invite full proposals by December 18, 2020. Submission of full
proposals are due by March 15, 2021. We plan to make final award decisions
by May 28, 2021 for research to begin on August 15, 2021.
*Letter of Intent (LOI) Stage*
Applicants are required to submit:
1. A complete curriculum vitae for the PI and for all major team members
(if applicable).
2. A letter of intent that includes the central questions of the
project, the background and significance of the questions, the way in which
the project addresses at least one of the Big Questions of this RFP as well
as how it relates to honesty defined broadly as concerned with being
truthful in thought and action, a budget estimate, and a summary of the
methodology. The letter cannot exceed 1,500 words.
Letters of Intent should be submitted to the application portal at [URL to
be added soon]. Acceptable file formats are .doc, docx, and PDF. Questions
about the application process can be sent to honesty at wfu.edu. All LOI
materials must be received no later than November 9, 2020.
*Full Proposal Stage*
Those applicants who are invited to submit full proposals must include:
- A cover letter with the title, amount requested, duration of the
project (not to exceed two years), and team members (if applicable).
- A description of the work to be carried out, not to exceed 5,000
words. The
description should explain the central questions of the project, the
background and significance of the questions, the way in which the
project addresses at least one of the Big Questions of this RFP as well as
how it relates to honesty defined broadly as concerned with being truthful
in thought and action, relevant issues in the White Paper, the methodology,
and the researchers’ qualifications to conduct the research.
- A project abstract of up to 500 words which explains the project and
its significance to non-academics, and which would be published on The
Honesty Project website and possibly in JTF materials, and included in
publicity materials if the proposal is funded.
- Ethical approvals for the research described in the proposal (e.g.,
from the local IRB); please request a later deadline if needed.
- A timeline.
- A detailed budget with accompanying narrative explaining line items,
totaling between $50,000 and $200,000 in total costs including overhead.
Overhead is limited to 15%, and funds cannot be used for major equipment
purchases.
- Approval of the Dept. Chair and University Signing Officials.
Full proposals should be submitted to the application portal at [URL to be
added soon]. Acceptable file formats are .doc, docx, and PDF. Full
proposals will be accepted only from applicants who have been invited to
submit by the fellowship directors, on the basis of the LOI phase. Full
proposals must be received no later than March 15, 2021.
Selection criteria will include: (1) significance, approach, innovation,
investigators, and environment, (2) relevance of the project to the RFP
goals, and (3) likelihood of continuing work on honesty in the future.
Please see NIH criteria for more information (
http://cms.csr.nih.gov/PeerReviewMeetings/ReviewerGuidelines/). All
applications must be submitted in English and all payments will be made in
US dollars.
Grant Eligibility
The PI must have a Ph.D. and be in or contracted to a faculty position at
an accredited college or university or pre-approved non-profit research
institution (write us for pre-approval) before May 1, 2021. We will give
preference to proposals from PIs who are within ten years of receiving
their Ph.D. at the time of submission. However, more senior investigators
are strongly encouraged to apply and alternatively can be included on
proposals in other roles. Applicants can have their name on only one
proposal for this competition, and if funded, cannot be funded in the
philosophy funding competition, although they can be named on them.
Applicants from non-US countries are allowed. Because we cannot award
grants of more than $200,000 USD, as such please budget in your own
currency and please consider the implications of currency fluctuations.
The PI of funded projects must commit to the following:
1. Submit interim and final reports, as well as interim and final
expenditure reports. The interim and final reports should not exceed 5
pages, and should detail the outcomes of the funded project. Reports must
be submitted at the end of Year 1 and at the conclusion of the project if
the project is for more than one year.
2. Attend a two-day Initial Research Conference in summer 2021 at the
Graylyn International Conference Center (www.graylyn.com) in Winston
Salem, NC (expenses covered by the Project). This requirement may
ultimately be waived or modified given travel restrictions and global
health issues associated with COVID-19. The workshop will include award
winners from this competition, along with winners of the similar
competition in philosophy. The purpose is to: (1) provide rich feedback to
PI’s before beginning their projects, (2) infuse interdisciplinary
considerations into the projects, (3) deepen connections between projects
to enhance their coordinated impact on the field, and (4) create a network
of scholars working on honesty. Other team members may attend the
conference, but their expenses will not be covered by the Honesty Project,
and the PI will be the one who delivers the presentation about their funded
research.
3. Summarize the feedback they received and request any changes they
would like to make immediately after the conference (briefly, perhaps 1
page).
4. Attend and present central results at the three-day Final Research
Conference in June 2023, also at Graylyn (expenses covered by the
Project). PIs from both funding initiatives will present their
conclusions. The purpose is to: (1) provide feedback to the PIs on their
results, (2) suggest avenues for future research, (3) educate those in
attendance about the findings of the research projects, (4) disseminate the
findings more broadly and (5) deepen the professional network of honesty
researchers which we have formed. Other team members may attend the
conference, but their expenses will not be covered by the Honesty Project,
and the PI will be the one who delivers the presentation about their funded
research.
5. Dedicate a significant portion of the PI’s time to the project, being
directly involved in all day-to-day operations and conceptual development.
6. Notify the Project at honesty at wfu.edu of all conference
presentations, papers, and books that arise from the funded research.
7. Follow stipulations of grant award as communicated by JTF either to
WFU or to the recipient directly, and as determined by WFU.
8. Enact quality research practices, including having a decision rule
for terminating data collection, listing all relevant variables and
experimental conditions in publications, reporting supplementary results
without removing outliers or using covariates, and considering
preregistration at a site such as aspredicted.org (Simmons et al.,
2011).
All questions should be directed to:
honesty at wfu.edu
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