Article archive / January 2018
Originally published: . Volume 9, No. 1. Source pages: 2.
The Psychology Times just passed our 100th issue at the end of 2017. It has been a real joy and true honor.
When I launched the Times in 2009 it was to help deal with a fragmented community––too secretive and too political, but I didn’t expect the great pleasure of learning more about my community, its people, and myself. I didn’t expect the fascinating social psychology involved for us––free-ranging humans in our natural habitat.
I’ve discovered that I had been more prepared than I realized, by having grown up in a newspaper family of the 1950s and 60s, somehow cultivating the values of the journalists of that time, especially for the First Amendment. Newspaper journalists in those days had an honorable role, but not a lucrative one. They could make a decent living, but for my parents and the other weekly publishers around the state, it was never about the money.
So I’m doubly surprised to see that the on-going arguments being filed in the Hoffman Report lawsuit involve free speech and First Amendment rights, for a report about organizational psychology matters at APA, written by an attorney, for which he was paid $4 million.
The Hoffman Report was commissioned by APA to analyze activities surrounding on-going conflicts about and between military psychologists, APA ethics staff, and human rights advocates.
Hoffman did not use any obvious statistical methods, but concluded in favor of the human rights psychologists––that APA had “colluded” with government. The report was leaked and headlines splashed across the country linking APA with “torture.” Some of those involved sued for defamation.
Currently arguments are going back and forth over what are called the “Anti-SLAPP laws.” These are laws, mostly supported by newspaper organizations and book publishers, which help protect free speech from “SLAPP” lawsuits. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” and are considered meritless, with a goal only to silence people.
The Hoffman defense appears to be calling on these free speech protections, including a motion to have the plaintiffs (the military psychologists and two APA employees) declared to be “public figures.” If the court decides that these individuals are in fact “public figures,” then the standard becomes very high––false statements can be made about public figures but for it to stick “actual malice” must be included. This is a high bar and not often reached.
So in essence the attorneys for Mr. Hoffman and APA are trying to say that a work product falls under the same free speech umbrella as for newspapers and private citizens. Is Mr. Hoffman saying that he is a private citizen or a member of the press? Did he write an opinion piece or editorial? Or did APA hire a legal professional who is accountable for the quality of his work? Is APA accountable for how they used his work? Is everyone in a task team at APA to be considered a public figure?
Perhaps this is all just posturing and legal gamesmanship, but it is a concern, since we have a similar issue in our community. The state psychology board is having to defend the work of their attorneys, work that District Judge Michael Caldwell viewed as having violated the Constitutional rights of at least one psychologist.
In both cases the actual work product, or a large part of it, could have been done better by qualified psychologists, and at a much, much lower fee.
Psychologists can add validity and precision to understanding the human condition. As applied scientists, psychologists not only have an affinity for the truth, they can add validity and precision to understanding human behavior and complex interactions. We require methods that help with the natural human tendency to distort. As Robert Abelson warns us about in all research, in his classic text Statistics as Principled Argument: “… we need principled data- handling procedures to protect us from inventing elaborate overinterpretations for data that could have been dominated by chance processes.”
It is a little annoying that Mr. Hoffman’s attorneys would conjure the First Amendment. But, well, many newspapers are playing loose with it these days.
The level of reality in groups and subgroups seems to be steadily in decline across our country, and we are threatened with a dangerous contamination of roles, responsibilities, processes and values.
Psychology, like the press, can, if we take up the baton, help keep the waters pure. Our goal as scientists and applied scientists is a pure one, of truth.
(* “ … and Still Disappointed,” added upon recommendation of Archimedes.)
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.