Most behavioral science research is still conceived, planned, conducted, and disseminated in the Global North, leaving unknown its relevance and generalizability to Global South settings. We investigated whether behavioral science researchers living and working in East Africa understand the credibility of behavioral science research differently than do researchers in the Global North. We used a structured protocol called IDEA to conduct four rounds of forecasts of 20 papers each with between 35-50 researchers from around Nairobi. We compared these forecasts from East African researchers to similar ones obtained from Global North researchers on the same 80 papers. Unexpectedly, our East African forecasters judged the papers as more credible than did the Global North forecasters. Our forecasters also reported that the protocol was useful for learning how to critically examine published research. Our results raise questions about the research ecosystem that encourages such optimism about the credibility and applicability of published research, and suggests that the IDEA protocol could be a useful tool for teaching critical examination and skepticism.