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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