The Hoffman Report: Psychologists and Torture. An Ethical Precaution for Psychologists

Abstract

The present paper introduces the readers to the Hoffman report — an independent attorney report on American Psychological Association (APA) officials’ participation in institutionalizing and developing torture techniques that were used to interrogate the prisoners of the secret Department of Defense prisons (Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc.). People in charge of the APA were shown to have changed the ethical standards and APA regulations in such a way as to enable psychologists to participate in the so-called enhanced interrogations. We present the context of the report and the key findings and conclusions. We discuss the reaction of the psychological community and cite a number of papers that analyze the report from the theoretical and empirical standpoint, and reflect on the causes of the events. This situation can be viewed as a precaution for Russian psychologists likewise in making ethical decisions. Conclusion: Ethical codes do not constitute ethics per se nor do they protect from possible ethical violations, partly because abusers often are not just those who know the codes, but also those who write them.