Resolution regarding Participation by Psychologists in Interrogations in
Military Detention Centers

WHEREAS psychologists in the United States, through their major professional organization, the American Psychological Association (APA), have adopted a set of ethical principles that includes the principle of Beneficence and Nonmalfeasance (Principle A), which declares that psychologists should strive, in their work, “to do no harm” and should “seek to safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact” and the principle of Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity (Principle E), which declares that psychologists should “respect the dignity and worth of all people” and explicitly recognizes that “special safeguards may be necessary to protect the rights and welfare of persons or communities whose vulnerabilities impair autonomous decision making”; and

WHEREAS the United States military and Central Intelligence Agency are widely recognized and acknowledged to have incarcerated a number of persons in foreign detention centers without the due process of law ordinarily afforded by international human rights treaties and standards and to have subjected many of these detainees to forms of interrogation banned under international law, including some forms of torture; and

WHEREAS attention has recently been drawn to the fact that psychologists have been involved in the interrogations of incarcerated persons in such detention centers, and in some cases have contributed to the development of extraordinary forms of interrogation including torture; and

WHEREAS the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution on August 19, 2007 that, while condemning torture, continues to allow coercive interrogations so long as these interrogations do not cause “significant pain or suffering” or “lasting harm,” and that continues to allow psychologists to participate in interrogations in foreign detention centers in which internationally recognized due process of law is not afforded, and that in continuing to permit these violations of Principles A and E of the APA Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct, serves to legitimize the above mentioned violations of human rights and to undermine the moral authority and stature of psychology as a profession, and that, moreover, fails to recognize that decades of research in social psychology demonstrates that situational factors, especially in highly ideological and isolated settings, can be predicted, over time, to undermine the resolve of well-intentioned individuals, including psychologists, to resist institutional pressures to misuse authority;

The Department of Psychology of Earlham College therefore resolves

1. that the direct or indirect participation by psychologists in interrogations of prisoners incarcerated in foreign detention centers that do not afford prisoners internationally recognized due process of law is unethical; and
2. that the American Psychological Association should prohibit the participation of psychologists, directly or indirectly, in interrogations in these facilities.  

[This resolution was subsequently adopted by the departments of psychology of several other institutions, including at least the following: Guilford College; Smith College; California State University. Long Beach; University of Rhode Island; York College; Mount Holyoke College; University of the District of Columbia; Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center; University of Dallas. In the following years, the APA membership voted by referendum to prohibit such participation, the APA Council extended and clarified this prohibition, and the APA Code of Ethics was expanded to explicitly prohibit psychologists involvement in torture.]