I have a long story. It's self-serving but it may be of interest, and
possibly cautionary or instructive. For me, telling the story is
therapy.
Last year Haggbloom et al (2002) published in the prestigious _Review
of General Psychology_ (RGP) a lightweight effort purporting to rank
the greatest psychologists of the 20th century. It was amusing
nonetheless. My attention was caught by the name of Washburn on the
list of the eminent, credited with an eponym for the "Cannon-
Washburn experiment". Washburn was a hapless graduate student of the
great Walter B. Cannon, and all I knew about him was that he was
induced to the disagreeable task of swallowing a balloon to further
his advisor's research on hunger and stomach motility (Cannon &
Washburn, 1912). I think of this as the first documented instance of
exploitation of a graduate student by his advisor, although certainly
not the last. So I was surprised but pleased to see his name among
the eminent.
Only it turned out it wasn't. This was the wrong Washburn. The one
Haggbloom et al meant to honour was instead female, and had the
distinction of being the first woman to earn the Ph.D. in psychology.
Margaret F. Washburn had many achievements, including serving as
president of the APA, but swallowing a balloon was not among them. As
a reviewer of my paper later commented, it was most unlikely that
Miss Washburn would have submitted herself to such an indignity.
Denied her incorrectly-attributed eponymic credit, her placement on
the list would sink and she was in danger of being removed from it
entirely.
Then I noticed another peculiarity. The high-ranked Cannon listed was
not the justly-famous psychologist (actually physiologist) Walter B.
Cannon, but the relatively unknown W. Gary Cannon. Once again, it
appeared there had been a grievious confusion of names, although how
anyone could confuse the superstar Cannon with his obscure namesake
escapes me.
So, encouraged by the curious combination of errors both involving
Cannon, the need to correct them, and the advantage of a snappy title
for the piece ("Cannonical confusions"), I fired off a critique to
RGP for publication. I always feel if you have a good title, the rest
will take care of itself. Only it didn't.
The new editor of RGP, Douglas Candland, accepted my submission, and
sent it off to Hagbloom for comment. He confirmed my discoveries, and
both agreed that the errors required correction. It was at this point
that things started to fall apart. Because, while they wanted to use
the information I had provided them with, to my amazement Candland
told me they could not publish my piece, as editorial policy did not
allow commentaries . A series of increasingly acrimonious e-mail
exchanges took place between the three of us, now also including the
previous editor of RGP, Peter Salovey.
Their position was thanks for the info, and we'll publish an erratum.
My position was that they had received a privileged communication and
had only two choices: publish it under my name as a commentary or
reject it and keep your hands off the information, at least until I
publish it elsewhere. I quoted the APA Ethical Principles (clear) to
no avail; I quoted the guidelines in the APA Publication Manual
(even clearer) with no greater effect. I was particularly incensed
that Candland would send my work out for review to Hagbloom with no
intention of publishing it, and then allow Hagbloom to use the
privileged information it contained to write an erratum. They budged
only as far as grudgingly offering to thank me in print for tipping
them off, nothing more.
The chief editorial advisor for the APA, Lenore Harmon, was asked to
resolve the dispute. I thought that surely an impartial observer
would see the appalling ethical lapse in what Candland proposed to
do. She didn't. She argued that the decision to publish the erratum
without my permission was justified because: a) it was important to
publish the corrections as soon as possible; and b) because my ms did
not contain "creative theoretical or methodological ideas that [I]
had thought of before anyone else" but only "errors which could have
been found by anyone", it was not entitled to protection as a
privileged communication. I was astonished at her reasoning.
Getting desperate, I took three steps. First, I sent my submission
off to _Psychological Reports_ in the futile hope that it would beat
the erratum into print. Second, I filed a formal complaint with the
APA Ethics Committee. Third, I contacted two people I had become
acquainted with through TIPS, both with impressive expertise in
ethical matters and the workings of the APA.
What happened with the _Psychological Reports_ submission is
interesting. The exchanges between Candland, Hagbloom, and myself
began to circulate to a wider group. To my further astonishment,
Hagbloom sent a letter to this group accusing me of unethical
behaviour by sending my paper to _Psychological Reports_ while
continuing to ask for publication in RGP (the accusation is nonsense,
because RGP had rejected my paper). How did he know that I had
submitted it to _Psychological Reports_? Because, he announced, he
had just reviewed it as a referee for that journal. Two ethical
problems here should be obvious: (i) a reviewer does not agree to
review a paper for one journal while planning to make unauthorized
use of the information for publication in another, nor while engaged
in a dispute with the author; and ii) a reviewer is bound not to
disclose that he has received a confidential submission for review.
But Hagbloom's indiscretion was nevertheless useful. I immediately
wrote to the editor of _Psychological Reports_ to point out the
undeclared conflict of interest of their reviewer. Sure enough, when
I received the reviews, there was one curiously-worded one opposing
publication, and it was not difficult to guess its author.
_Psychological Reports_ nevertheless accepted my paper for
publication.
The APA Ethics Committee also accepted my complaint for review.
However, they told me they could not prevent publication of the
erratum in RPG. What they could do was censure the editor of RGP, and
I did find that option attractive. But given my unhappy experience
with the chief editorial advisor of the APA, and the APA's less-than-
sterling reputation in ethical matters (e.g. their actions in the
Rind/Lillienfeld cases), I had no confidence that my complaint would
be upheld. However, I was encouraged by the two ethicists I
consulted, who supported me and expressed concern for the way I was
being treated. Moreover, they advised me that I had still another
means of appeal, this time to the Executive Committee of Division 1
of the APA. Significantly, none of the other parties to this dispute,
including the chief editorial advisor, had informed me of my right
to this appeal.
The appeal was dealt with by the President-elect of Division 1, Bruce
Overmier. Rather than providing a decision, he tried to mediate. His
solution was to allow me an extended erratum (an abbreviation of my
ms) in RGP in my own words, together with full publication in
_Psychological Reports_. He implied that otherwise Candland would be
allowed to proceed with the Haggbloom erratum. Unable to block
publication, I felt this deal was the best I could hope for but I
doubted that _Psychological Reports_, would accept such an
arrangement. I asked. The editor agreed.
As it happens, the duplication between the two versions was minimized
when, with the help of Charles Harris, I discovered further errors in
the Hagbloom et al (2002) paper. I withdrew the paper accepted by
_Psychological Reports_ and submitted a new, extended critique of the
Hagbloom paper to it, this time keeping my mouth shut about the
errors to Candland and Hagbloom (I wasn't going to make the same
mistake twice!)
The conclusion is that my erratum, with a response from Hagbloom, was
published in RGP in the March issue of 2003. The extended critique
(Black, 2003) was just published in _Psychological Reports_ and I'll
be happy to send reprints on request. I withdrew my complaint to the
APA Ethics Committee, reluctantly, because it would have been
intereresting to see how they dealt with it. And if there's a moral
to all of this, it's pretty simple: if you have something to say
about a paper published in RGP, don't send it on to them. They just
might rip you off.
Stephen
References
Black, S.L.. (2003). Cannonical [sic] confusions, an illusory
allusion, and more: a critique of Haggbloom, et al's list of
eminent psychologists (2002). Psychological Reports, 92, 853-857.
Cannon, W., and Washburn, A. (1912). An explanation of hunger.
American Journal of Physiology, 29, 441-454.
Erratum (2003). Correction to Haggbloom et al. (2002). The 100 most
eminent psychologists of the 20th century. Review of General
Psychology, 7, 37.
Haggbloom, S., et al (2002). The 100 most eminent psychologists of
the 20th century. Review of General Psychology, 6, 139-152.
[available on-line at
http://www.apa.org/journals/gpr/press_releases/june_2002/gpr62139.pdf]
Relevant ethical clauses dealing with the issue:
>From "APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists"
6.22. Plagiarism.
Psychologists do not present substantial portions or elements of
another's work or data as their own.
6.23 Publication Credit
(a) Psychologists take responsibility and credit, including
authorship credit, only for work...to which they have contributed.
6.26. Professional reviewers.
Psychologists who review material submitted for publication...respect
the confidentiality of and the proprietary rights in such information
of those who submit it.
>From the "Publication Manual of the APA" (5th ed., p. 354-5):
"Editors and reviewers may not, without the author's explicit
permission, quote from a manuscript under review of circulate copies
of it for any purpose other than that of editorial review...In
addition, editors and reviewers may not use the material from an
unpublished manuscript to advance their own or others' work without
the author's consent."
_______________________________________________________
Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7
Canada
Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips
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