Marc- Before saying anything in direct response to your note, let me applaud your honesty and self-reflection. I agree that this does happen sometimes in our discipline and I won't spend time expanding on your very well stated position. What I do question a bit, is any implication that this is more likely or more intense in psychology departments (or lists!) than in other departments. I'm married to our college's insititutional research officer and, though I don't want to cast stones at other departments, I can say without equivocation that on our campus the more guilty of this problem are not in psychology departments. Though my colleagues and I are in very different areas we work very hard to use this as an opportunity for teaching our students professionalism rahter than to promote our own agendas. We do, of course, each believe that we are correct but we seem to try very hard to present a fair and reasoned response to the mistakes of our fellow professors. For example, when we discussed Skinner in the learning course a student asked me if it were true, as our counseling psychologist had stated in class, that Skinner had experimented on his daughters (etc, etc.). I stated that no it wasn't true. To which the student responded, "Ha! I told Dr X he was lying!". Rather than drop it or agree, I took the time to say that he wasn't lying but was mistaken (and to point out that I too make mistakes). I went on to show the class that indeed there are texts and articles galore that print this erroneous "fact" on a regular basis. This brought us to a lively discussion on "truth", what scientific deception was, and ways to "educate" faculty. My colleague was happy to learn of his mistake (though, disappointed most likely to learn he could no longer use this wonderful sword against behaviorism!). Lest it sound like we have some idealic perfect department, I should say my case is more like that presented by Marc than by any pretend utopian community. I too was more guilty of this kind of barb thowing earlier in my career. Perhaps it is the dearth of good models or more likely that we have models of the misbehavior while lacking models of proper professional conduct (though I really think it more likely that the misbehavior is somehow more obvioius and perhaps even more "rewarding" to our prior beliefs and emotions). Tim S.
-----Original Message-----
From: G. Marc Turner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sun 4/25/2004 12:37 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences
Cc:
Subject: professionalism
Last week I had someone approach me on campus after guest lecturing for a
different department and ask some very "interesting" questions about
Psychology and psychology faculty. In many ways the questions seemed to be
based on partial truth stories about faculty in our department, but others
seemed to be based on more reality about the field than I would care to
admit. One that really stuck out in my mind was in relation to
professionalism and how we treat our colleagues, be they in our own
department, in another department on campus, or even at other universities.
(Of course I do think it is probably an issue in other disciplines as well
and might be more of an academic thing rather than being field specific...)
As I've thought about it over the past few days, I've come to see what I
view as a disturbing pattern. A large percentage of psychology faculty
appear to be rather quick in making judgements about other people based on
very little evidence or personal interaction. Often these judgements tend
to be negative, and psychology faculty seem to feel "obligated" to make
their negative judgements known to other people rather than just ignoring
the person and moving on. Often these negative judgements are expressed by
attacking a person's professional credibility, but can quickly turn into a
more personal attacks and even include implied (or direct) accusations of
racism, antisemitism, or any host of other rather serious biases intended
to tarnish the reputation and credibility of the other person. These
judgements and attacks seem to be based on people assuming that another
person has some ulterior motive or hidden agenda. I'm sure it happens in
other disciplines as well, but it seems as students of psychology we tend
to be particularly good at it.
Having been in the middle of some of these occurrences as a student, it is
often that both sides are wanting to reach a common goal, but assume the
worst about the other side because of the approach taken towards that goal.
It can also happen when someone feels their "turf" within the field or
department is being challenged or questioned. I admit to having engaged in
this type of behavior before, almost to the point of "fighting" against the
hiring of some adjuncts because they could be a threat to my position..
(happy to say though that they are great people and are doing a good job
and their teaching is allowing me to teach some courses I really enjoy
rather than always having the same course semester after semester).
Now, my guess is that this is less true of the people on this list than in
the field in general, but I have seen some signs of it here as well.
Someone posts a question or comment and the attacks begin to fly in a
downward spiral until the list comes so consumed by the personal attacks
that the purpose of the list fades into the background. I've seen
departments become paralyzed by this same type of behavior. Michael posts a
message implying all psychometricians are racist, to which someone suggests
Michael is not qualified to be teaching, to which someone tries to defend
the right of Michael to ask a question, to which yet another personal
attack is launched, culminating in accusations of Michael being racist...
(Sorry to pick on you for this example Michael, but you do seem to be on
the receiving end of many of these attacks for some reason... though Ray
has done a fairly good job in deflecting this type of attack recently.)
Anyway, I'm wondering if others have noticed this type of behavior (and are
willing to admit it). Why is this? Do we assume that because we are
students of human nature that our judgements of people are better than
those of others? That because of our "expertise" we our ethically bound to
share those views? Is it because so many of us have our own ulterior
motives that we assume everyone else does as well? Are we aware that we,
as a field, give off this impression? Or do we simply just not care how we
look as a profession to those on the outside?
I'm not really looking for a response to this (although I'm sure I'll get a
few). More I just wanted to throw this out as something to think about
amidst the personal attacks that seem to be filling my inbox...
Reflecting, admitting to being guilty of the behavior I describe, and
trying to do it less often...
- Marc
=============================================
G. Marc Turner, MEd, Network+, MCP
Instructor & Head of Computer Operations
Department of Psychology
Texas State University-San Marcos
San Marcos, TX 78666
phone: (512)245-2526
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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