Asian Scientist Magazine (Jan. 19, 2024) — In 2022, a study from the University of Tsukuba in Japan found a substantial increase in the use of promotional or hype language in successful grant applications seeking funding from National Institutes of Health (NIH) between 1985 and 2020.
The team’s follow-up analysis suggested that the excessive use of hype vocabulary by applicants might have, to some extent, been prompted by a similar trend in NIH’s own tendency of including hype terms in their funding opportunity announcements. Until now, no evidence was available to indicate that these language choices trickled down to the published journal articles communicating NIH-funded projects.
In their latest study, published in JAMA Network, the researchers examined the trends in the usage of hype in published journal abstracts of NIH-funded research and compared them with their previously identified trends in the associated funding applications from 1985 to 2020.
The study scanned a total of 2,394,480 journal abstracts with a curated list of 139 adjectives. Adjectives were considered promotional if the information in a sentence remained unchanged when they were removed or replaced with a more objective or neutral alternative.
All 139 adjectives came up for 2,793,592 total occurrences. Among them, 133 of the hype words saw an increase by 5335 words per million (wpm)—an uptick of 1404 percent over the 36-year time period. The words whose usage soared the most were ‘novel’, ‘important’ and ‘key’.
The trends mirrored the team’s earlier report on NIH funding applications. Moreover, the researchers calculated strong positive cross-correlation values for 61 of the adjectives, while 53 showed a moderate positive cross-correlation, with only 3 demonstrating a moderate negative cross-correlation.
Together, these studies highlight the growing levels of salesmanship across the NIH research cascade—from initial funding opportunity announcements to the final publication of research findings. However, whether the biased use of hype could impact the evaluation of research reports remains to be explored.
While grant applications require scientists to effectively market their research proposals to secure funding, published studies, despite their primary goal of accurately detailing experiments and their results, also serve as performance indicators. They are often necessary in acquiring tenures and additional benefits, such as obtaining more research grants.
“Recognizing the potential for hype to undermine the fidelity of research reports, funding bodies, alongside other groups, share a responsibility to not nudge investigators, and thus the collective system, toward hype,” the study authors wrote.
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Source: University of Tsukuba ; Image: University of Tsukuba and Asian Scientist
The article can be found at Promotional Language (Hype) in Abstracts of Publications of National Institutes of Health–Funded Research, 1985-2020.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
