Article archive / April 1, 2016
Originally published: . Volume 7, No. 4. Source pages: 2.
by J. Nelson Quinnipiac University pollsters asked voters if they agreed or disagreed with this statement: “Public officials don’t care much what people like me think.” A whopping 76 percent of all respondents agreed. Only 23 percent disagreed and only 7 percent of those strongly disagreed.
While 75 percent of Sanders’ supporters agreed, and 61 percent of Clinton supporters agreed, a full 90 percent of Trump supporters said that public officials don’t care what citizens think.
Last month the SSA published its policy on symptom validity testing (see front page story), indicating that they don’t care about what anyone thinks–not the scientific community, not their Congressional bosses, not their Inspector, and probably most certainly, not the people that pay their salaries.
To get the full, flabbergasting effect and seriousness of the SSA’s group-level decision, here is a review:
1) Before 2007, psychological scientists, mainly the top shelf neuropsychologists, were innovating methods for figuring out symptom validity. Result: The SSA ignored new scientific innovations.
2) Around 2007, Mike Chafetz (along with others) collected data on symptom validity in SSA disability cases. He began to share the data. Result: Chafetz was discontinued as a consulting psychologist.
3) Around 2011, Senator Tom Coburn picked up the baton, found serious flaws and challenged the SSA. Result: SSA ignored Coburn and other members of Congress.
4) In 2012 and 2013, the Office of Inspector General told the SSA to change. Result: SSA sent a CPA to tell the Inspector General that the SSA disagreed and they’d get their own study from the Institute of Medicine (IOM). 5) In 2014-2015, the IOM studied the problem (at what cost, only God and Judicial Watch know) and came down dramatically on the side of psychological science and symptom validity testing.
Result: Last month the SSA ignored the IOM, and are staying mostly with their old policy, which conveniently benefits them in power, control, and resources. Not surprising is the fact that the innovations would save millions and millions of dollars.
From an embedded social group theory perspective, we can predict that this type of over-boundary in a subgroup correlates with deficiencies in group-problem solving. We can also predict that the problem exists all over government, and elsewhere too, as a function of poor parent group boundaries. It is certainly the case with the IRS, and probably the Justice Department. It is the unlucky citizen who gets tangled up with them.
What should we social scientists be doing about this? In his 1950 essay in the New York Times, Bertrand Russell warned that our technological advancements could easily outdistance our ethical capabilities, and that the science of psychology holds the answer and must help guide the way.
Today, society may be too complex for individuals to ward off the pull of the collective unconscious. Ideas are so truncated and speeded up, that collective amnesia is the rule, not the exception. A single individual can’t usually overcome these group dynamics. Psychology should be part of the solution.
But the parent group needs a shot in the arm, to remind us, the collective, that the country was founded on a social system paradigm shift––the single principle of individual liberty.
If the Trump phenomenon is in response to the group dynamics, it makes perfect sense.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.