Would You Defend This Decision in Public? A Person × Situation Theory of Prospective Publicity and Research Integrity

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Abstract

Research integrity is often attributed to flawed individuals or flawed systems, leaving under-theorized the decision episode in which a researcher exercises consequential discretion. This article develops the Prospective Publicity-Integrity Model (PPIM), a person × situation theory of prospective answerability in scientific self-regulation. Its proposed contribution is not a new publicity test, but a discriminating architecture. Before implementing a focal choice, the Prospective Publicity Heuristic asks researchers to identify affected constituencies, articulate alternatives, uncertainty, and current evidence, and consider whether those reasons could withstand evaluation by people with relevant standing. The model separates reason generation from identifiability, procedural from psychological timing, simulated from credible institutional answerability, and a private cue from an optional retained-record protocol. It predicts a psychological route from issue recognition through self-standard accessibility and self-critical reasoning, plus a distinct protocol route that constrains retrospective reconstruction. Ten falsifiable propositions specify when this architecture should improve material-element completeness, event-report congruence, disclosed deviation, voice, and correction, and when it may instead produce compliance theater, conformity, concealment, privacy loss, or chilled exploration. Existing evidence supports components, not the complete model. The article therefore offers a cumulative research program, not an adoption mandate.