National Research Council Appoints New CommitteeBrayfield, Arthur H.
doi: 10.1037/h0021148pmid: N/A
Item explains that the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council (NRC) established in the fall of 1965 an Advisory Committee on Government Programs in the Behavioral Sciences within the NRC Division of Behavioral Sciences. The creation of this Committee was in response to a long-standing concern in the NRC Division of Behavioral Sciences with problems related to the operational aspects of Government sponsorship of research in the behavioral sciences, both at home and abroad. This concern was brought into sharper focus as a consequence of Project Camelot and its aftermath, but was by no means precipitated by these events alone, it was stated by Peter B. Hammond, the Executive Secretary of the Division of Behavioral Sciences. The Committee members and their affiliations are listed.
Testimony before House Special Subcommittee on Invasion of Privacy of the Committee on Government OperationsBrayfield, Arthur H.
doi: 10.1037/h0021149pmid: 5939115
Document provides transcript excerpts of the House Special Subcommittee hearing a continuation of a study by the special inquiry of the House Committee on Government Operations on the subject of invasion of privacy as it is related to certain investigative and data-gathering activities of the Federal Government. The transcripts note that at previous hearings, the Subcommittee examined the use of personality tests and questionnaires by Federal agencies in the employment picture. Two of the witnesses heard (Francis Ianni, Acting Associate Commissioner for Research, Office of Education; and Arthur H. Brayfield, Executive Officer of the American Psychological Association) addressed themselves to that matter.
Privacy and behavioral researchRuebhausen, Oscar M.; Brim, Orville G.
doi: 10.1037/h0023526pmid: 5939116
There is a "conflict of . . . scientific research with the right . . . of private personality." Traditional methods of behavioral research may, on occasion, involve a violation of the individual claim to private personality. 2 central ethical issues are the degree of individual consent that exists and the degree of confidentiality that is maintained. Whenever possible, "both consent and anonymity should be sought in behavioral research." 7 principles are suggested for inclusion in a general code of ethics for behavioral research.
Foreign Affairs Research: Review Process Rises on Ruins of CamelotWalsh, John
doi: 10.1037/h0021150pmid: 5939117
Article explains that the scuttling almost a year ago of Project Camelot, a social science research program financed by the United States Army, has produced some direct results that might have been anticipated and some indirect effects which may in the long run prove more important. The State Department recently announced new procedures designed to assure the propriety of Government-sponsored foreign affairs research in respect to its effect on American foreign relations. Creation of review machinery within the State Department resulted from a Presidential order in August. The order was issued in the wake of a clamor in Chile caused by Camelot (Science, 10 Sept. 1965). The Camelot affair seems also to have markedly increased communal soulsearching among social and behavioral scientists on the ethical implications of their growing involvement in Government-sponsored research. Camelot has also prodded the same scholars toward coming to terms with the results of the swarming of social scientists into certain underdeveloped but no longer academically neglected nations.
Project Camelot: An Interim PostludeVallance, Theodore R.
doi: 10.1037/h0021151pmid: 5939118
In the following article the author, Director of the Special Operations Research Office of American University, gives an account of what the designers and staff of Project Camelot hoped to achieve. To summarize the design, Project Camelot was a large-scale multidisciplinary study of the early phase in the development of internal war potential and the effects of government actions vis-a-vis that development. The objective of the study was to analyze the feasibilty of developing and testing a system for analyzing a country that would provide the means to: (a) identify and measure indicators and causes of potential internal conflict; (b) determine the effect of various government actions to influence that potential; and (c) obtain, store, and retrieve the information required for the above system to be operational. It was planned as an objective, nonnormative study concerned with what is or might be and not with what ought to be. A balanced course between theoretical and empirical work was planned. Being multidisciplinary, the Project was bringing to bear all the relevant disciplines and talents required, whether they be drawn from the fields of sociology, psychology, external relations. In this sense the Project was a systems analysis making use of the techniques of operations research as well as other methods. Procedurally, the Project planned to use a societal model, emphasizing processes of social change, as a heuristic device to guide data collection which would in turn feed back with refinements of the model, and so on through several iterations.
The Life and Death of Project CamelotHorowitz, Irving Louis
doi: 10.1037/h0021152pmid: 5939119
Article explains that Project Camelot was a project for measuring and forecasting the causes of revolutions and insurgency in underdeveloped areas of the world. It also aimed to find ways of eliminating the causes, or coping with the revolutions and insurgencies. Camelot was sponsored by the US Army on a four to six million dollar contract, spaced out over three to four years, with the Special Operations Research Organization (SORO). This agency is nominally under the aegis of American University in Washington, D. C., and does a variety of research for the Army. This includes making analytical surveys of foreign areas; keeping up-to-date information on the military, political, and social complexes of those areas; and maintaining a "rapid response" file for getting immediate information, upon Army request, on any situation deemed militarily important. Latin America was the first area chosen for concentrated study, but countries on Camelot's fouryear list included some in Asia, Africa, and Europe. In a working paper issued on December 5, 1964, at the request of the Office of the Chief of Research and Development, Department of the Army, it was recommended that "comparative historical studies" be made in: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela; Egypt, Iran, Turkey; Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand; and France, Greece, and Nigeria. The article then explains how Chile, a country not on the list of nations recommended for study, came to be involved in the pursuant foreign policy furor.
"The Meaning and Measurement of Ego Development": ErratumLoevinger, Jane
doi: 10.1037/h0021155pmid: N/A
reports an error inthe original article "The Meaning and Measurement of Ego Development" by Jane Loevinger(American Psychologist, 1966, 21, 195-206). The entry in the first row of the fourthcolumn of Table 1 on page 198 should read "Self versus nonself." : Defense of researchworkers in clinical psychology. Ego development is "second only to intelligence inaccounting for human variability [and] must become a focal construct in psychologicaltheory and research."