Predictably Irrational, a forthcoming book by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at MIT, tells about an experiment done to learn how sexual arousal influences decision making. The experiment involved showing pornography to male undergraduates while they masturbated.
Before allowing the research to begin, Dean Richard Schmalensee assigned a committee, consisting mostly of women [professors], to examine the project. This committee had several concerns. What if a participant uncovered repressed memories of sexual abuse? Suppose a participant found that he or she was a sex addict?
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov quotes a psychoanalytic textbook by Erich Fromm “used in American colleges, repeat, used in American colleges”:
The little cap of red velvet in the German edition of Little Red Riding Hood is a symbol of menstruation.
The narrator comments: “Do these clowns really believe what they teach?” Did the MIT professors really believe those outcomes were serious dangers?
For similar stories, see IRB Watch.
I personally think that they just wanted to prevent us from doing this research — so they were trying every excuse they could come up with.
In grad school no one tells you about these research “challenges”
Dan