Zombie papers in social psychology: A look into Smeesters’ seven retracted articles and their citations

This study investigates the long-term impact of retracted articles, focusing on the case of Dutch social psychologist Dirk Smeesters. Despite their retraction, all seven of Smeesters’ articles are still cited, earning them the title of “zombie papers”. According to an analysis of citation data from Clarivate’s Web of Science Core Collection (conducted in January 2025), 58.28% of citations occurred post-retraction, with some articles receiving more citations post-retraction than pre-retraction. The author identifies 25 journals that cite these articles, including five instances of positive post-retraction citations in the large-scale psychology journal Current Psychology and the Open Access journal Frontiers in Psychology (with two and three citations, respectively). These findings highlight systemic issues in scholarly publishing, emphasizing the importance of improved retraction tracking, citation practices, and ethical/editorial oversight.