2014年11月，经过对社会心理学家Jens Förster的论文进行了近一年调查后，最终被控操控数据而撤稿，当时Förster极力否认自己操控研究数据。现在Förster决定停止候选鲁尔大学著名亚历山大•冯•洪堡教授头衔的职务，但他仍然不承认了数据操纵的指控。

“I changed my approach to life completely," Förster wrote on his website.

弗里德里希·威廉·海因里希·亚历山大·冯·洪堡（1769年9月14日－1859年5月6日），著名的德国自然科学家、自然地理学家，近代气候学、植物地理学、地球物理学的创始人之一；涉猎科目很广，特别是生物学与地质学。

在昨天洪堡基金会的一项声明中，Förster公布了放弃该职位的决定，现在不知道他是否放弃大学的教授职务，也不清楚他是否继续在鲁尔大学工作，目前他在该大学属于临时性职位，在他个人网站上的声明中也没有直接提出这一内容。他提出将离开唯物主义和缺乏灵魂的工作方法，去走自己的路（感觉是“走自己的路，让别人去说吧”）。

洪堡基金会2014年初给Förster这一职务，但很快在5月中断，并对他在荷兰阿姆斯特丹大学工作期间的3项研究存在问题进行指控。

Inthe controversial studies, Förster investigated how "priming" bysubtle cues—such as a smell or hearing a poem—can change a person's cognitiveresponse. Suspicions against his work were first raised in 2012 by awhistleblower who filed a complaint at UvA. In June 2013, an integrity committeeat the university concluded that data patterns in the studies were “practicallyimpossible,” and recommended the publication of “expressions of concern” in thejournals involved.

Försterappealed the findings at the Dutch National Board for Scientific Integrity (LOWI),which ruled in March 2014 that data had been manipulated in one of the threestudies, published in 2011 by Förster and co-author Markus Denzler in SocialPsychological and Personality Science (SPPS). LOWI couldn't identify whichauthor was at fault, but held Förster responsible as first author; it did notinvestigate the other two studies. UvA supported LOWI's judgment, and thearticle was retracted in November 2014 at the request of the university'sboard. Förster denied the charges, even after e-mails cast doubt on hisdefense.

InOctober 2014, after Förster had already left for Bochum, UvA gave in topressure from the social psychology community to launch a wider investigation.The university asked a statistician to check if any of the papers Försterpublished between 2007 and 2014—the years he worked in Amsterdam—contained thesame highly improbable statistical patterns found in the SPPS study. Theresults of the new inquiry haven't been published yet, but a UvA source saysthat the report is finished and that Förster has been informed about theresults. A spokesperson for the university tells ScienceInsider that he can'tconfirm this.

TheHumboldt Foundation has canceled deliberations about Förster’s professorshipscheduled for the end of this month. “We respect Professor Förster’s decisionand hope that the allegations raised against him, which are still a matter ofcontroversy amongst experts, can be definitively clarified,” Helmut Schwarz,the foundation's president, said in today's statement.

Förstercurrently has a temporary position as a social psychology professor at RUB thatexpires in September. His statement is unclear about whether he hopes to stayat the university, but parts of the text suggest he does not. “I changed myapproach to life completely. I do not further want to chase after publicationsas was the rule elsewhere," Förster writes. "I will spend the rest ofmy life on BEING rather than on HAVING," he also says. A RUB spokespersonsays that he can't comment on Förster’s position after September.

Inthe statement, Förster again denies manipulating data and refers to “recentexcellent alternative explanations for my results under discussion, provingthat such results patterns can be obtained by methods that are not problematic.More statistical analyses will follow.”