An organizational scandal in psychology: social representations of Hoffman Report in Europe

ABSTRACT

This paper features the European perspective on the Hoffman Report, primarily a North American issue which has had an impact on European professionals, given the position of APA as a source of ethical guidelines and publication standards. Applying the theory of social representations of Serge Moscovici, the processes of anchoring and objectification serve as interpretative tools in the case study of the perception of the Hoffman Report in Europe. The semiotic triangle guides the exploration of communicative and instrumental functions of social representations. Comprehensive methodology includes interviews with European psychologists, textual analysis of online press articles from six different countries (with classification of images) and examination of official statements issued by various European psychological associations. The research findings consist of identifying diverse rhetorical devices (including silence) as ways of dealing with organizational trauma suffered by a sister/rival organization overseas, conditioned by ideological and professional positioning.

KEYWORDS:

• Hoffman Report
• social representations
• communication
• APA
• torture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.