Paul Brandon wrote: "First, the article was in an APS journal, not APA. Second, the actual quote is below -- judge whether this constitutes 'vetting':
....Steven Breckler, a social psychologist who currently serves as the executive director for science at the American Psychological Association, graciously provided an assessment of the proposal's ethical issues that I shared with the IRB." ---------------------------------------------- First, if I gave the impression the article was in a APA journal, I apologize. The author, as part of a series on negotiating IRB's in APS' Observer, discussed how he shepherded this research through the IRB process. He took the unusual step of actually contacting the APA Science office but not the APA Ethics office but the guidance he sought was clearly of an ethical nature. Second, while the word, "vetting", may be unclear, as slang often is, I think its meaning is not to receive approval for some course of action but to run it past someone looking for preliminary red flags. According to the Free Online Dictionary (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vetted), to "vet" means "to subject to thorough examination or evaluation". So while folks can disagree as to whether providing "an assessment of the proposal's ethical issues" falls short of vetting, the assessment does seem to have at least provided some measure of support from APA that the researcher used to gain approval from his IRB. Of course, the approval came from the local IRB, not APA. Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (479) 524-7295 http://www.jbu.edu/academics/hss/faculty/rfroman.asp "Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." - Ulysses Everett McGill ________________________________ From: Paul Brandon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 10:20 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] APA "vetting" of Milgram replication on ABC At 9:11 AM -0600 12/12/07, Rick Froman wrote: Back on April 12 of this year, there was a brief thread on TIPS on the Primetime broadcast about a replication of Milgram's study. There was a line in the report that indicated that it had been vetted by the APA. Linda Woolf contacted the APA for an explanation of the degree of their involvement in the ethical decision-making on this experiment (some of which is excerpted below). Steve Behnke claimed that, "as far as I know, there was absolutely no vetting whatsoever, and certainly no vetting of the ethical aspects." In the process of looking for information on this tape, I just came across a description of the process of receiving ethical review for the study at: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2264. In the relevant portion, Jerry Burger, the experimenter on this study, writes "to address these concerns, I created a list of individuals who were experts on Milgram's studies and the ethical questions surrounding this research. I offered to make this list available to the IRB. More important, Steven Breckler, a social psychologist who currently serves as the executive director for science at the American Psychological Association, graciously provided an assessment of the proposal's ethical issues that I shared with the IRB." So while Steve B. (for Behnke) as Director of the APA Ethics office didn't provide any ethical analysis of the project, it seems that Steve B. (for Breckler) as executive director for science at APA did provide a positive assessment of the proposal's ethical issues that was given to the IRB for their deliberations. I think the description given by Burger certainly qualifies as a vetting of the experiment despite APA's protest. There may have been some confusion about a distinction between an ethical analysis of the TV program and the study but, in the messages below they seem to be clearly saying that the experiment received no ethical review from APA and that clearly seems to be untrue. This may all be old news to everyone but it was news to me and, given the recent thread on using this tape in classes, I thought it might be relevant for teachers to know the extent of APA's involvement in the ethical review. -- The best argument against Intelligent Design is that fact that people believe in it. * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University * * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * * http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ * --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ---
