In a comment in Nature that came out today, we address the potential problem of conflicts of interest in psychology awards. We went over the websites of 58 psychological societies, and found that the large majority did not mention any conflict of interest policy with respect to awards. This means we can’t rule out the possibility that recipients of the awards may be closely affiliated with the award committee (e.g., a supervisor selecting his/her PhD student for an award). We urge societies to be open about their award procedures, to avoid the impression of hidden nepotism.

We thank everyone who helped us coding the websites at the 2019 SIPS meeting.

Read the Nature comment here.

Read the working paper here.