A former Harvard psychology professor recently informed two scientific journals that data contained in research she conducted while a Harvard professor was invalid. As a result she has requested that the journals publish retractions for two of her articles.

The researcher, Karen M. Ruggiero, was an assistant professor in Harvard’s psychology department from 1996 to 2000.

Ruggiero contacted both the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which published articles by her in 1999 and 2000.

She asked both to run statements declaring that data in her articles “should not be considered part of the scientific literature.”

Both journals are planning to run such statements in their next issues.

“I have never encountered something like this in 38 years in the profession,” said Chester A. Insko, an editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

While Jerry M. Suls, editor of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, said that retractions are occasionally required for articles appearing in scientific journals, almost always they are the result of later-discovered unintentional errors, such as faulty equipment.

He said when such unintentional mistakes are the cause of the error, the retraction will virtually always contain a description of the mistakes. Ruggiero’s requested retraction contains no information on the cause of the errors.