Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:16:32 -0800
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         Tor Neilands <tbn@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Ethics

Stephanie Fishkin writes:

>(has anyone else heard rumors that this whole experiment was fabricated?
>Now here is a new vein in this ethics discussion: as a grad student, I've
>been told that some of the "classic" or well-known studies I learned about
>as an undergrad may not have been as 100% true as I was led to believe. The
>Zimbardo study was one rumor I've heard about.  I've also heard the same about
>some other fairly current research. So, should we assume these rumors -- told
>to me by both fellow graduate students as well as professors from other
>institutions besides my own! -- are false, or if they are true, how do
>we stop perpetuating the myths?  Just a thought. Now back to the original
>posting).

This is a tough issue. We can get even grayer (sp; ww?) than that: what
about the "almost true results" that are "massaged" into truth and
published? We don't know how much of that is going on out there. I've seen
entirely too much of it in my graduate career, to the point where I'm very
cynical about what I read in journals, now. I don't blame individual
researchers as much as I blame the incentive system that has put enormous
pressure on folks to "publish" or "perish". Sigh...

>
>Stephanie "the Social Psychologist" Fishkin (who sometimes maliciously
>fantsizes about what great deception research she could do if only the
>revew board wasn't so strict!)

No, no, Stephanie! Don't do it! I had the misfortune to have a low
self-esteem subject break down and cry in one of my dissertation studies
this semester, and that was one that had been approved! Others who do
self-related research here have had the same experience. True, that's more
of an issue of feedback as opposed to deception, but I've also run a few
subjects in my day who have been unhappy about being deceived--and it's
something I'll have to live with forever. It's not a fun feeling to think
about it, so I try not to dwell on it overmuch. At the same time, I don't
want to ever do that to someone again.

These be just my 2 * 10**-2 cents worth, not gospel, or law, btw. Just food
for thought, which may be accepted, ignored, or rejected at your leisure
(do grad students have "leisure?").

cheers,

Tor

Tor Neilands                            Computation Center
Systems Analyst                      University of Texas at Austin
Statistical Services Group        Internet: TBN@Utxvm.cc.utexas.edu

______________________________________________________________________
"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,
 because the stakes are so low".                         --- Wallace Sayre

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I, I took the road less traveled
  by, and that has made all the difference".        --- Robert Frost
______________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer:  All of the views expressed above are solely those of the
author and not necessarily those of the University of Texas or the
University of Texas Computation Center.
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