Originally published: . Volume 8, No. 3. Source pages: 2.
What Unites Us in Psychology by Times publisher, J. Nelson
I’m not surprised that a lawsuit has been filed against David Hoffman by three military psychologists and others named in the 2015 Hoffman Report commissioned by APA. [See story page one.] In 1976, Rensis Likert wrote in his New Ways of Managing Conflict, “For many if not all conflicts, the need is to find a way to resolve them constructively without eliminating the differences which led to the conflict.” Hoffman’s analysis did not help in this basic goal.
The conflict between the human rights psychologists and the military psychologists had grown in intensity over a decade when the two Air Force trained psychologists poured gasoline on it by actually recommending water-boarding methods. When this came to light, the human rights activists were incensed. APA leadership struggled.
Into this conundrum entered Hoffman with his 556-page report and 6,000 pages of attachments. I read nearly the whole thing and could find no quantification of data, no frequency or 2X2 tables, no codes or themes. It was not clear if he actually measured anything, which, in science, means you’ve combined randomness with your variables, or what you think might be your variables. We were told that the “process” amounted to reviewing 50,000 documents and interviewing 148 people, which of course is not a process or method, but a list of things.
His observations were mixed with his opinions, his opinions mixed with his conclusions, and his unproven hunches about inner motivations and personality characteristics, mixed with all the rest.
The quality of the Report began to dawn on people as the fast-think conclusions, whipped up by media one-liners, began to fade. After all, if you were critical of the Hoffman Report you must be in favor of torturing people.
Now we’ll see what a judge and jury in Dayton, Ohio think about this. Dayton, with its Air Force Institute of Technology, sitting in Montgomery County named after a Revolutionary War general, and where Trump edged out Clinton.
During bitter conflicts, and at all other times, there is one thing that should unite us, and that is our scientific perspective.
Because of our scientific perspective, psychologists are unique in that we are both a science and a profession. We use the tools and methods of science, resting on a body of knowledge and theory, to ask questions and find valid answers in real world human problems.
Why APA went outside of our own profession to seek valid answers to questions about human beings, I cannot figure. Perhaps if we want others to acknowledge our societal value and contributions, it could help if we start at home.
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