ShadowPsychology officials expressed concern over the number of psychology majors indicating they were "offended" by the web site. While these officials note that the reactions appear to be concentrated within a small number of universities, the concern was sufficient to prompt a prepared statement from J. Wyatt Ehrenfels, author, social psychologist, dream researcher, and ShadowPsychology founder:

"This is not a war against psychology majors. This is a war against the norms governing the day-to-day operations among psychology professors, norms which are prejudicial, counterproductive, and dehumanizing -- norms which have the full support of these professors. This is not a war against the study of human nature. On the contrary, it is a war to liberate the psyche from the academic and professional culture of psychology so that psychologistic phenomena could be probed more adequately, accurately, and authentically. As this is a brief statement, I do not wish to delve more deeply into an elaboration on these points and I refer those interested in learning more to read the web site.

"It concerns me that persons as young as college undergraduates readily identify with a field about which they know so little and with professors with whom that have barely a working relationship. Psychology majors are not authorities on anything. They are not junior colleagues nor are they even trainees as they have not yet been admitted to graduate school. I think it will become clear to the majority of them that the field will be rather quick to shed them. Most psychology majors, upon conferment of the BA or BS, will not advance within psychology. They will not have been admitted to advanced studies and soon after leaving the campus entirely, they will discover in the search for private sector employment, that there are few if any psychology related positions for the BA or BS and few if any employers who regard psychology majors as having anything unique to offer them. Of course, by this time they will no longer be living on campus and will no longer be registered with the university and thus none of the psychology majors left behind, the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes, will be able to learn from the freshly disillusioned. This is perhaps the most sobering and unfortunate of circumstances, and it insulates the status quo from any pressures that might ultimately prompt its reform. If we accept the comparison that the graduates are dead and buried, then I must be a ghost who returned to make some rather extraordinary efforts to publicize a state that for too many feels neither like life nor like life after death.

"My message to you, the psychology major, is this...do not be frivolous with your values. Do not defend an establishment that is not worthy of your loyalty. Remain open-minded and do not take my criticism of the field personally. To do so is to empower the source of your own professional demise and to place yourself on a level you have far from reached."

The Allegation of Over-Generalization

"I am also concerned by the perception that I am somehow over-generalizing, because nothing could be further from the truth. I make some rather general statements, but the statements, while being utterly true, mask variation at more specific levels. Take for example the statement that 'the norms have the full support of professors.' While this is true for the vast majority of professors, it still does not mean that all professors lend the same kind of support to the norms. Some professors, for example, act as cheerleaders for the norms, over-identifying with them such that a deviation by a new student is perceived with hypersensitivity as opposition. For these professors the norms offer the raw material for a professional identity and this identity often substitutes for an undeveloped or undesirable personal identity. But there are other professors who do not identify with the norms and who would not rue the day these norms are replaced wholesale by new norms. They just want external guidance. They want some external authority or herd to instruct them as to what it is exactly they need to do to achieve certain career milestones, which is a totally different kind of malfeasance. So you see, there is considerable variation here that is obscured and yet this variation does not make the generalization untrue."

But I am not afraid to make generalizations because, let's face it, as scientists, that's what we're in business for. Generalizations are not inherently incorrect or invalid. Generalizations are incorrect or invalid when the methodology or motivation by which they are formulated is incorrect or invalid. I have been arguing that the products of psychological research, which are generalizations, are too often misleading or downright incorrect because the procedures and processes through which they are formulated (see http://www.fireflysun.com/book/point6.php ) does not take the individual and the variability among individuals into account when it collects the data from which it will ultimately extract and abstract conclusions. But my generalizations are grounded in, and thus representative of, the raw variation. The individual and individual differences are very important to me as a personality psychologist and as a proud individualist interested in understanding his own inner world. I do not feel that psychology professors value the individual, or individual differences, and that this belief is supported not only by the way they collect and analyze data, but also by the way they treat their graduate students and their overall vision for the field. They demand a united front and, more than that, they demand consensus of opinion, a strict adherence to and celebration of rules where rules are not even necessary and, beyond unnecessary, are counterproductive.

"But generalizations are not in and of themselves incorrect. My critics often fall back on this notion that generalizations are inherently bad, and I would argue that this notion, that generalizations are inherently bad, is itself as simplistic as any stereotype. They would like nothing more than for you to put my generalizations about psychology professors in the same general category with racial stereotypes. This would make me look both stupid and hateful. Nothing could be further from the truth. The generalizations I draw about psychology professors are informed not only by extensive experience but by a sociological analysis of group dynamics. I think just about everyone is capable of understanding how sociological pressures and evolutionary forces can shape a group in such a way that it becomes more homogeneous, more inbred, over time (see http://www.fireflysun.com/book/point7.php for details). Obviously the same could not be said for the color of one's skin, and I would never make the mistake of attributing characteristics to individuals based on skin color, for I know it is what is beneath the skin that counts. Take blood for example. Certainly you have all heard the phrase, 'we need new blood.' Well it is my contention that psychology departments need a total transfusion if psychology is to survive as a credible enterprise.

"And finally there are those who use the allegation of over-generalization as some method of extortion. Whatever they hear or read that is undesirable to them is called an over-generalization if it does not appear to be based in hard numbers. They impose rigorous requirements on the opinion, calling attention to the absence of formal empirical research as means of saying this generalization is both unjustified and unjust. They will not accept extensive life experience as a substitute, even when I quantify it in saying that it is based on experiences across nine different colleges and universities. The evidence for them remains anecdotal, which I find distressing but not surprising, because that is how they treat life itself -- as one big anecdote. This hit home when a professor of mine once remarked that as a psychology professor he is not interested in human nature, but in psychological law. If we examine their so called findings and psychological laws, we would learn that these are the types of rules for which the vast majority of individuals and experiences are exceptions. For an adequate understanding of human nature and psychologistic phenomena, we cannot rely on their hollow brand of cosmetic science. But that is believe it or not beside the point. What I wish you to come away with here is the idea that they would never subject their own opinions, their own methods or view points, to the same requirements, and certainly for obvious practical reasons, we cannot withhold all statements not supported by empirical research, or none of us would have anything ever to say. I assure you that these professors shoot off at the mouth as liberally as anyone else, and they do not have formal scientific support for everything said inside or outside the classroom.

"And then some would say, 'give me a number.' 'How many professors are as you say?' They pose that question in the hope that when I am unable to provide a number, or when I offer an approximation based on subjective probability, that I will appear confused. The fact of the matter is that I refuse to be drawn into that kind of numbers game. I do not need to assign a number, nor does the number need to reach a certain critical level to justify my argument. I only need to point to the current state of affairs in psychology departments, to the norms and to those scientific findings and personal experiences that are their products, and say 'too many!...'enough to cause and maintain this state of affairs.' It is their business rules which they defend so proudly as the 'glue that holds them together' -- as universal -- and it is these rules and their effects that I criticize. So why would anyone ask me for numbers? But when I criticize the conduct of professors, well, okay, I could tell you that even if that percentage were fairly low, let's say 30%, that this is still a critical minority when career milestones and day-to-day business depends on consensus. When you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator of some committee, as you always do in psychology, to remain a doctoral candidate or to publish an article in a journal, then 10% is too many. However, if numbers mean that much to you, then I will disclose now that in my heart of hearts, I believe this number actually to be upwards of 70%. This includes two classes of professors I alluded to earlier, to culprits and those who are, for any one of many reasons, complicit with the culprits.

This is all I have to say at this time. I urge all those who require elaboration on these points to consult the links that will be added to the transcription of this speech for my web site. Thank you."