NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Gary Ruskin (503) 235-8012
For Immediate Release: September 30th, 1999
Commercial Alert, Psychologists, Psychiatrists Call for Limits on the Use of Psychology to Influence or Exploit Children for Commercial Purposes
Commercial Alert and sixty psychologists and psychiatrists sent a letter today to Dr. Richard Suinn, President of the American Psychological Association, urging the Association to restrict the participation of psychologists in advertising or marketing to children. The letter was written by Gary Ruskin, Director of Commercial Alert. The letter follows.
Dear Dr. Suinn:
The American Psychological Association (APA) was founded to advance the understanding of the human psyche in order to promote health. The APA’s founding documents articulate this mission in inspiring detail. The organization is to “work to mitigate the causes of human suffering;” it seeks to “improve the condition of both the individual and society,” and to “help the public in developing informed judgments.”
That is a high calling. The APA’s healing and helping mission is accentuated by what the organization and its members are not supposed to do—namely “exploit or mislead other people.”
We are writing today about the latter prohibition. We are concerned that members of the APA are ignoring it, for monetary gain. They are not using their knowledge to mitigate the causes of human suffering. They are using it instead to promote and assist the commercial exploitation and manipulation of children. As individuals, that is their right, of course. But as a profession dedicated to human welfare, psychologists have a responsibility to the public. The APA should not condone such behavior among its members, nor should psychologists look the other way.
Regrettably, a large gap has arisen between APA’s mission and the drift of the profession into helping corporations influence children for the purpose of selling products to them. Advertising and marketing firms have long used the insights and research methods of psychology in order to sell products, of course. But today these practices are reaching epidemic levels, and with a complicity on the part of the psychological profession that exceeds that of the past. The result is an enormous advertising and marketing onslaught that comprises, arguably, the largest single psychological project ever undertaken. Yet, this great undertaking remains largely ignored by the APA.
The sale of psychological expertise to advertisers to manipulate children for monetary gain goes without comment let alone sanction. The profession does very little to protect innocent children—the people it is supposed to help—from the psychological cajoling and assaults that it itself helps to create. This behavior is not even mentioned in the APA’s “Ethical Principles of Psychologists And Code of Conduct” ("Ethics Code").
Several countries and provinces have laws to protect children from the attempts of adults to influence them in this way. For example, Sweden and Norway prohibit television advertising directly targeting children below twelve years of age. Greece bans television advertising of toys to children between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. Quebec prohibits television advertising directed at children below the age of thirteen. However, in the United States, children have no such protections, nor any protection against the use of psychological insights and expertise to manipulate or influence them.
If the APA stands for anything, and if it takes its own mission seriously, it ought to expose and challenge this abuse of psychological knowledge. It must not continue to tolerate by silence such abuse by its own members.
Specifically, we urge the APA to:
- Issue a formal public statement denouncing the use of psychological techniques to assist corporate marketing and advertising to children; and,
- Amend the APA’s Ethics Code to establish limits for psychologists regarding the use of psychological knowledge or techniques to observe, study, manipulate, harm, exploit, mislead, trick or deceive children for commercial purposes; and,
- Launch an ongoing campaign to probe, review and confront the use of psychological research in advertising and marketing to children. The campaign would include: (a) ongoing investigation of the use of the tools of psychology in advertising, marketing and market research targeted at children; (b) publication and ethical evaluation of these findings; and, (c) the promotion of strategies to protect children against commercial manipulation and exploitation by psychologists and those who use the tools of psychology.
Sincerely, Samella Abdullah, PhD
Neil Altman, PhD
Anita Barrows, PhD, Associate Faculty, Wright Institute, Berkeley, CA
Sharon A. Baker, MSPH, PhD, Research Scientist, University of Washington
Jack Block, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Psychology Department, U.C. Berkeley
Lane Conn, PhD, Center for Psychological and Social Change, Harvard Medical School
Sarah Conn, PhD, Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PhD, Prof. of Psychology, Peter Drucker School of Management, Claremont Grad. Univ.; author of Flow
Victor Daniels, PhD, Professor, Psychology Department, Sonoma State University
Jeanette Diaz-Veizades, PhD, Faculty, Saybrook Institute and Research Center, San Francisco
Samantha Dowdall, PhD, Transpersonal Counseling Center, Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, CA
Saul Eisen, PhD, Professor, Psychology Department, Sonoma State University
Greg Fiest, PhD, Associate Professor, Psychology Department, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Diane Ehrenseft, PhD, Faculty, Wright Institute Joseph Friedman, PhD
James Gabarino, PhD, Professor of Human Development, Cornell University; author of Lost Boys
Chellis Glendinning, PhD, author of When Technology Wounds
Mary Gomes, PhD, Associate Professor, Psychology Department, Sonoma State University
Leslie Gray, PhD, Director, Woodfish Institute
Steve Handwerker, PhD
Jane M. Healy, PhD, educational psychologist; author of Failure to Connect
Susan Hillier, PhD, Associate Professor, Psychology Department, Sonoma State University
Larry Jaffe, PhD
Zonya Johnson, PhD, Faculty, Saybrook Institute and Research Center, San Francisco
Allen D. Kanner, PhD, Associate Faculty, Wright Institute
Ellyn Kaschak, PhD, Professor, San Jose State University, author of Engendered Lives
Timothy J. Kasser, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Knox College
Robert E. Kay, MD, psychiatrist
Terry Kupers, MD, Faculty, Wright Institute
Lynne Layton, PhD, PhD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School
Larry M. Leitner, PhD
Lenny Levis, PhD, Director, West Coast Children’s Center, Kensington, CA
Susan Linn, EdD, Associate Director, Media Center, Judge Baker Children’s Ctr.; Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Richard Lichtman, PhD, Core Faculty, Wright Institute, Berkeley, CA
Judith Liebow, PhD, Director of Training, Children’s Hospital, Oakland, CA
Emily Loeb, PhD, Psychotherapy Institute, Berkeley, CA David Lukoff, PhD, Faculty, Saybrook Institute and Research Center, San Francisco
Ralph Metzner, PhD, Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies
Kate Moody, Director, EdD, Dyslexia Program at University of Texas Medical Branch, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Neurology
Allison C. Morrill, JD, PhD, Research Scientist, New England Research Institutes
Diane M. Morrison, PhD, Research Professor, Center for Policy and Practice Research, University of Washington
Magdalena R. Naylor, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Vermont; co-author of The Search For Meaning
Gilbert Newman, PhD, Director of Field Placement, Wright Institute
Margaret Pavel, PhD, Instructor, New College of San Francisco
Marc Pillisuk, PhD, Professor Emeritus, U.C. Davis; Faculty, Saybrook Institute and Research Center
Susan Raeburn, PhD
Erika Rosenberg, PhD, Assistant Professor, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Richard Ryan, PhD, Professor of Clinical & Social Psychology, University of Rochester
Fran Segal, PhD
Marilyn Senf, PhD, Berkeley Mental Health Adult Services
Laura Sewell, PhD, Faculty, Prescott College, AZ
Joseph S. Silverman, MD
Robert Slegal, PhD, Professor, Psychology Department, Sonoma State University
Karen Spengenberg, PhD, Clinical Neuropsychologist, Northeast Rehabilitation Center, Salem, NH
Valerie Stone, PhD, Assistant Professor, Psychology Department, University of Denver
Alan Swope, PhD, Associate Professor, California School of Professional Psychology
Veronique Thompson, PhD, Institute Faculty, Wright Institute Chera Van Berg, PhD, Palo Alto, CA
Art Warmath, PhD, Professor, Psychology Department, Sonoma State University
David Watt, PhD, Berkeley, CA
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Commercial Alert was founded last year to oppose the excesses of advertising, marketing and commercialism. Commercial Alert’s web address is http://www.commercialalalert.org.
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