A psychology journal has retracted a seminal 2002 paper on deadlines and procrastination coauthored by behavioral scientist Dan Ariely of Duke University. The posts, which appeared August 31, 2026 and September 2, 2026 on the Data Colada blog, dug into the datasets behind the two main experiments in Ariely’s paper, published 24 years ago in Psychological Science. The reanalysis was prompted by a study published July 15, 2026 in the same journal attempting to replicate one of the paper’s original experiments.

The September 2, 2026 retraction notice cited all three works, noting the replication study "raised questions about the underlying data in the original study", and the Data Colada posts "called into question the veracity of the overall findings". Ariely’s coauthor on the paper, Klaus Wertenbroch, of INSEAD in France, requested the retraction on July 23, 2026.

The retraction is the second for Ariely. A 2012 paper on dishonesty — published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and coauthored by Harvard researcher Francesca Gino — was also retracted over concerns data in the study were fabricated.
 

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/09/03/procrastination-study-duke-dan-ariely-psychological-science-data-colada-tampering-retraction/

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