Penn Torture Doctor Seligman in the News Again

from today's New York Times article "Interrogation Inc.":

Start of the Program

In December 2001, a small group of professors and law enforcement and intelligence officers gathered outside Philadelphia at the home of a prominent psychologist, Martin E. P. Seligman, to brainstorm about Muslim extremism. Among them was Dr. Mitchell, who attended with a C.I.A. psychologist, Kirk M. Hubbard.

During a break, Dr. Mitchell introduced himself to Dr. Seligman and said how much he admired the older man's writing on "earned helplessness.・Dr. Seligman was so struck by Dr. Mitchell's unreserved praise, he recalled in an interview, that he mentioned it to his wife that night. Later, he said, he was "grieved and horrified" to learn that his work had been cited to justify brutal interrogations.

Dr. Seligman had discovered in the 1960s that dogs that learned they could do nothing to avoid small electric shocks would become listless and simply whine and endure the shocks even after being given a chance to escape.

Helplessness, which later became an influential concept in the treatment of human depression, was also much discussed in military survival training. Instructors tried to stop short of producing helplessness in trainees, since their goal was to strengthen the spirit of service members in enemy hands.

www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/us/12psychs.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

"If you torture a dog with random electric shocks, will the dog become sad?"

from the Ivygate Blog:

If you torture a dog with random electric shocks, will the dog become sad?

Such was the question millions of Americans were once frantically asking, until Penn professor and psychologist Martin Seligman decided to find out once and for all. (The answer: Yes.) However, Seligman's results, after they were first published 40 years ago, had a perhaps unintended effect. As it happened some time later, CIA torture aficionados became very interested in Seligman's work and wanted to examine the implications of this revelation for human torture. Seligman's dog studies, it turns out, were instrumental in developing techniques used at Guantanamo Bay. So say the muckraking journalists, at least. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports:

[Writer Jane} Mayer's book [The Dark Side] alleges that Seligman's research heavily influenced the psychologists that developped [sic] CIA interrogation techniques at the Guantanamo Bay military prison. But in a pre-publication review of the book's content, Harper's Magazine writer Scott Horton writes that Seligman "assisted" in the development of their interrogation techniques. This statement has since circulated on several psychology-related blogs and is a claim that Seligman unequivocally denies.

At last, the truth comes out: everything is the Ivy League's fault.

According to the Atlantic,

The setup involved restraining dogs and subjecting them to "50 seconds of severe, pulsating shock" -- trauma that lingered as fear, torpor, and depression after the experiments ended. Animal advocates questioned his ethics, rightly, and Seligman defended his work by pointing out, also rightly, that it had illuminated mental illnesses that afflict the lives of millions of humans, at a price of nonpermanent damage to a few dozen dogs.

Seligman tells the DP his dog torture experiment was for purely dog-torturing purposes and had nothing to do with the CIA's application of his breakthrough concept, called "learned helplessness," to torturing terrorism suspects.

"The allegation that I 'provided assistance in the process' of torture is completely false," Seligman said in a written statement. "I strongly disapprove of torture and have never and would never provide assistance in its process."

Hey, at least now we're prepared for the next wave of canine terrorism.

www.ivygateblog.com/?s=Seligman

From the Daily Pennsylvanian:
Issue date: 8/6/09 Section: News

Psych center to train military personnel
Jenny Chung


In an effort to help soldiers develop more effective responses to occupational stressors, Penn's Positive Psychology Center will hold a series of resiliency training sessions for members of the military beginning this month and lasting through December.

During their time at the center, military officers will be taught techniques designed to change the way they interpret and anticipate events.

Psychology professor Martin Seligman, director of the Positive Psychology Center, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the training will enable officers to practice "active, constructive responding," a conversational approach aimed at helping the other speaker "relive good events." It will also teach them how to reduce anxiety induced by imagining worst-case scenarios.

Once familiar with these techniques, officers will then "take what they've learned about preventing psychological problems and living more fulfilling lives back to their troops", Seligman said in the Inquirer.

The training at Penn constitutes part of the larger Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, a newly introduced Army initiative intended to help 1.1 million soldiers and their families deal with the growing prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal behavior among both soldiers currently facing combat and those returning to civilian life.

media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2009/08/06/News/Psych.Center.To.Train.Military.Personnel-3754012.shtml