Cognitive biases and research miscitations

Abstract

Prior research on miscitations in academic literatures have painted a dismal picture of high rates of inaccuracy. While this issue and the problems that stem from inaccurate citations have been reviewed, the attention given to the causes of such inaccuracies has so far been narrow. The primary rationale given for citation errors is author lack of motivation. In the current manuscript, we suggest that examining the potential for cognitive biases to also contribute to miscitations can add conceptual nuance to this question as well as provide additional recommendations for practice. We argue that even when authors are motivated to cite research correctly, that the cognitive biases of source confusion, gist memory, and repetition effects may lead to miscitations. We explore these ideas with a systematic review of over 1400 papers in which we found that the rates of miscitation are high (44.8%). Additionally, evidence from the review provides some support that cognitive biases may produce miscitations. Recommendations to authors, reviewers, and editors are provided.