ABSTRACT
The introduction of work from experimental social psychology has been important in many areas of litigation, including forced busing in the United States, limits on industrial action at the Chancery Court in the United Kingdom, and the suppression of pedophilia and pornography in the United States and Canada. Systematic probing of psychologists that explored their perceptions of crisis would be rife with social approval bias, and might reflect their sense of individual success as opposed to collective progress. Few academic disciplines appear to be as subject to self-doubts about their scientific achievements, prospects, and credentials as psychology. The relevance of the controversy is not limited to the field of social psychology and public policy. There is a lively debate about the epistemology of social science in what has come to be called the “science wars.” Related to experimentation are two issues that have worried social psychologists. The first concerns deception and the second concerns ethics.
