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VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1     PSYCHNEWS INTERNATIONAL          March 1999
                   -- AN  ONLINE  PUBLICATION --
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SECTION I: LETTERS 2/2

                RESPONSES TO THE ARTICLE
         "CONTEMPLATING MORAL RESPONSIBILITY"
                     PSYCHNEWS 3(4)

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Note: This section includes readers' responses to 
Dr. Donald P. Corriveau's article in the PsychNews 3(4), 
December 1998. It can be accessed at:
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/FTP_3_4/PN3_4_C.HTM
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     WHAT ARE THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES?


I have just read the piece on the survey, by 
Donald P. Corriveau, Ph.D.

    Is this piece a good example of why some 
analysts claim that much of what is published 
as psychology should be considered as exemplars 
of writing history? (If this piece were based on 
data broad enough to include all psychologists, 
one might call it an anthropology. Perhaps one 
could say, an anthropology of those who respond 
to surveys on moral issues on the forum known 
as Psychnews!!!)

    Would the writer explain to us why this 
piece would appear on a forum devoted to 
psychology?  What psychological principles are 
elaborated by this piece? What psychological 
principles are used to explain the behavior of 
the respondents to the survey?

James C. Mancuso        
Dept. of Psychology, University at Albany
Email: mancusoj@capital.net
http://www.crisny.org/not-for-profit/soi
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                      BOGUS SURVEY


I am a social scientist with 30 years experience and 
I always feel somewhat embarrassed at these sorts of 
naive surveys. A good survey uses a sampling methodology 
which assures a reasonable representation of the 
population surveyed (and reports in the results how 
this was accomplished) and specifies clearly the 
population at which the survey is aimed.  This is all
part of what is called in sampling statistics, the 
representation problem.

Please, no more bogus surveys which tell us nothing 
for the logical reasons originally delineated in 
Occam's Razor ("entia non multiplicanda praeter 
necessitatem.").

It seems to me that the whole exercise was an excuse 
for some kind of moral and psychotherapeutic diatribe 
on the part of Dr. Corriveau as indicated in the 
choice of many of his questions. I believe that it 
is an ethical issue (as part of our social contract 
with our community) to ask the police to investigate 
any murder confession. This core issue was not examined 
by the survey. If the man is actually delusional (and 
innocent), that also eventually will be revealed and 
(hopefully) lead to his receiving treatment as an end 
result of the police investigation.

To me this was less a survey and more a manipulative 
attempt (consciously or unconsciously motivated) by 
Dr. Corriveau to get us to join him in his moral outrage.

Peter L. Nelson, Ph.D.
Australia
Email: plnelson@csi.com


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