Rind et al. controversy

Rind et al. (1998) refers to "A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse (CSA) using college samples", a highly controversial study published in the American Psychological Association journal Psychological Bulletin by psychologists Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman in 1998.

It is not be confused with Rind et al. (1997) or "A meta-analytic review of findings from national samples on psychological correlates of child sexual abuse", an earlier study by Rind and Tromovitch in the Journal of Sex Research.

Some of the more controversial conclusions of the study were:

• "CSA does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis regardless of gender."
• "An important reason why the assumed properties of CSA failed to withstand empirical scrutiny in the current review is that the construct of CSA, as commonly conceptualized by researchers, is of questionable scientific validity."

The purpose of their research was "to examine the validity of the clinical concept" through meta-analyzing a number of studies dealing with sexual acts between age-discrepant partners, one of whom is a minor and the other of whom is an adult.

Rind et al. also claim that the “consensual” versus “non-consensual” variable is predictively valid because it can be used empirically to predict the degree of psychological damage based on whether the child describes the encounter as consensual or not.

Chronology of socio-political rejection of the article

July 1998 - the study by Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman was published in Psychological Bulletin.

December 1998 - the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) criticized the study for its methodology and conclusions. It was then attacked by The Wanderer, a Catholic religious newspaper, the talk show host Dom Giordano, Dr. Laura Schlessinger (known on her popular radio talk show as "Dr. Laura") and numerous Republican politicians.

March 23, 1999 - in response, the APA declared in a press statement that "the sexual abuse of children is wrong and harmful to its victims" and that "the findings of a research project within an APA journal is in no way an endorsement."

June 9 1999 - the president of the APA, Raymond Fowler, announced in an open letter to Representative Tom Delay that there was to be an independent review of the controversial study.

July 12 1999 - the American House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the study, declaring that child-adult sex could be nothing but "abusive and destructive." The resolution was passed unanimously in the Senate.

September 15 [1999] - the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), whom APA under political pressure had asked for an independent review of the article, did refuse to review the article again in order to respond to its political rejection saying that:

"We see no reason to second guess the process of peer review used by the APA journal in its decision to publish the article in question. While not without its imperfections, peer review is well established as a standard mechanism for maintaining the flow of scientific information that scientists can refer to, critique or build on. After examining all the materials available to the committee, we saw no clear evidence of improper application of methodology or other questionable practices on the part of the article's authors.

"The Committee also wishes to express its grave concerns with the politicization of the debate over the article's methods and findings. In reviewing the set of background materials available to us, we found it deeply disconcerting that so many of the comments made by those in the political arena and in the media indicate a lack of understanding of the analysis presented by the authors or misrepresented the article's findings. All citizens, especially those in a position of public trust, have a responsibility to be accurate about the evidence that informs their public statements. We see little indication of that from the most vocal on this matter, behaviour that the Committee finds very distressing."

The AAAS’s Committee of Scientific Freedom and Responsibility also reported that they "saw no clear evidence of improper application of methodology or other questionable practices on the part of the article’s authors". However, AAAS also added that "if there were such problems, uncovering them would be the task of those reviewing it prior to publication or to readers of the published article" and attached the following disclaimer: "The fact that the Committee has chosen not to proceed with an evaluation of the article in the Psychological Bulletin should not be seen either as endorsement or criticism of it" (p. 3).

March 2002 - The fact that the politics has intervened into the field of science has raised many objections from researchers concerned about its implications for independence of scientific peer-reviewing process. Some, including two Psychological Bulletin editors, call Raymond Fowler's June 9 letter a capitulation to political pressure. The affair was also later discussed in issue of another APA journal, American Psychologist.

Criticisms

Criticisms of Rind's 1998 study are drawn largely from an article titled "Science or Propaganda?", authored by Dallam, et al. on behalf the Leadership Council. The Council claims it is an organization "whose membership includes many of the nation's most prominent mental health leaders," whose mission it is "to insure the public receives accurate information about mental health issues." However Rind, et al. claim that it is "a recently formed organization of victimologists who had long advocated the validity of recovered memories and MPD" [1]. Whatever the truth regarding the Leadership Council, Dallam's criticisms are among the most frequently cited.

Examples of criticisms leveled at the study include:

• Sample Bias. A number of critics have noted that by restricting their analysis to convenience samples of college students, Rind et al. introduced a systematic bias in favor of their conclusion by excluding victims so traumatized that they did not go on to attend college. In addition, Duncan (2000) found that child sexual abuse survivors were far more likely than non-abused individuals to drop out of college, especially after only one semester. (See: Dallam, ibid., [2])

Rind, Bauserman, and Tromovitch respond to this criticism by emphasizing that "the representativeness of college samples is in fact irrelevant to the stated goals and conclusions of our study" since the purpose of their research was "to examine the validity of the clinical concept" of CSA. According to the commonly understood definition of the term, child sexual abuse is extremely and pervasively harmful, meaning that "in any population sampled - drug addicts, psychiatric patients, or college students - persons who have experienced CSA should show strong evidence of the assumed properties of CSA." The authors of the study note that because the college sample did not show pervasive harm, "the broad and unqualified claims about the properties of CSA are contradicted." (See: Rind, et al., [3])

• Non-Standardization of Variables. Rind et al.' were for not standardizing their treatment of either their independent or dependent variables. Holmes and Slap (1999) found the inexpertly and inconsistently combined data from the underlying studies, using different methods for translating different studies into the combined analysis. [4] For instance, Dallam et al. (in press) noted that Rind et al. uncritically combining data from studies of CSA with data from studies looking at other phenomena including consensual peer experiences, sexual experiences that occurred during adulthood, and homosexual approaches during adolescence. Holmes and Slap (1999) noted that Rind et al. uncritically combined psychological outcomes measured by different instruments with varying validity, relevance, and different interval scaling and cut points. After reviewing the Rind et al.’s study, Holmes and Slap concluded, "meta-analysis is not appropriate when methodological rigor, let alone the question asked, is so varied" (p. 2186).
• Statistical Errors and possible manufacture of results. In “The Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: Comment on Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998)”, Dallam, Gleaves, Cepeda-Benito, Silberg, Kraemer, and Spiegel, find that Rind et. al. simply mis-coded or mis-reported significant amounts of the underlying study data, skewing the results. Many of the findings that Rind et al. reported as being significant were actually statistical artifacts caused by their failure to correct for base rate differences in the rates of CSA in male and female samples. In this case, lower base rates of CSA in male samples caused effects sizes estimates for males to be attenuated and created the illusion that males were less harmed by CSA. After correcting for base-rate attenuation, the effect sizes for male and female samples were nearly identical. In other words, contrary to Rind et al.’s claims, males were not less affected by their abuse. Although Rind et al. acknowledged this, they chose not to correct for it, saying that "the attenuation is small in absolute magnitude for small effect sizes" and that "effect sizes would increase at most by .03" (p. 41). It is important to note that .03 was the exact difference in magnitude that Rind et al. reported between male and female effect sizes (r = .07 and r = .10, respectively). Because lower effect sizes indicate better adjustment, Rind et al. reported that a major findings of their study was that "self-reported reactions to and effects from CSA indicated that . . . men reacted much less negatively than women" (p. 22). After correcting for attenuation due to base rate differences, Dallam et al. reported that effect sizes for males corresponded to r = .11, which is practically identical to the corrected effect size for females, r = .12. All these errors were not random, but all favored the thesis of reduced harm of sexual abuse. (In Psychologican Bulletin, 127, 6, 715-733, 2001 [5] and Dallam, ibid.)
• Researchers' Personal Bias. As Rind himself has noted, the research findings can be skewed by an investigator’s personal biases. Rind et al. (1998) stated, “Reviewers who are convinced that CSA is a major cause of adult psychopathology may fall prey to confirmation bias by noting and describing study findings indicating harmful effects but ignoring or paying less attention to findings indicating nonnegative outcomes” (p. 24). The fact that Rind et al.’s results differed from those of most other researchers who have studied CSA raises the possibility that Rind et al. may have exhibited a confirmatory bias in the opposite direction. Rind and Bauserman has expressed their personal views in their other writings, for example, when Rind (1995b) has reviewed human sexuality textbooks’ coverage of the effects of CSA, he objected to the use of terms such as victims, survivors, offenders, and perpetrators (p. 219). Furtherly, Rind et al. 1998 recommended restricting the usage of the term child sexual abuse to sexual episodes that are unwanted or experienced negatively. Such a recommendation implys that Rind et al. believe that sex between adults and children can be noncoercive and that children can consent to sexual contact with adults. It should be remembered that this reconceptualization was first proposed by Jones (1990) who suggested the change would help professionals recognize the "possible benefits of intergenerational intimacy" (p. 276). Rind (1998) suggested that "willing man-boy sex accompanied by positive reactions may be better informed by the ancient Greek model [i.e., sexual relationship in which the older male also acts as a teacher and guardian] than by models based on the female experience (e.g., rape and incest models)" (p. 399). In addition to suggesting that sexual abuse is rarely harmful, Rind et al. have also blamed negative outcomes on those seeking to protect or treat abused children. For example, Rind et al. (December 18, 1998) blamed exaggerated beliefs about the harmfulness of CSA for child abuse hysteria, implantation of false memories, and iatrogenic creation of symptoms, which they claim "researchers in the child abuse industry" have seized upon "as further evidence for the pathogenicity of CSA". Rind (1995b) asserted that the consequences of CSA "is debatable because the traumatic behaviors attributed to the actual or fabricated sexual contact may instead have been induced by the interview tactics of the therapists and child abuse workers" (p. 82). Bauserman (1990) criticized those who believe that sexual relationships between men and boys "are by their very nature abusive and exploitive" or "that the younger partner is automatically incapable of consent" (p. 310). Bauserman stated, "It remains to be seen whether scientific objectivity can prevail against the need to defend the current dogma on man-boy sexual contacts" (p. 311).

From all the evidence available Dallam says that "After a careful examination of the evidence, it is concluded that Rind et al. can best be described as an advocacy article that inappropriately uses science in an attempt to legitimize its findings" (In “Science or Propaganda? An examination of Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman.)

Rind, et al. respond: "Our study brought rigorous (sic) and skeptical attention to an issue that has spun out of control, into what Jenkins (1998) called a 'moral panic.' Victimologists are advocates, not scientists. There is certainly a place for advocacy, as long as it is not confused with science--and as long as public policy is informed by the best scientific information available, rather than by unvalidated beliefs, however passionately held" [6].

See also

• Sexual abuse
• Childlove movement
• Ephebophilia
• Pedophilia

References

• Rind et al. (1998). "A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples". Psychological Bulletin. 124(1), 22-53.
• Lillienfeld (2002). "When Worlds Collide: Social Science, Politics and the Rind et al. (1998) Child Abuse Meta-Analysis". American Psychologist. 57(3), 177-187.
• Dallam, S. J. (2002), "Science or Propaganda? An examination of Rind, Tromovitch and Bauserman (1998)". Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. 9(3/4), 109-134.
• Dallam, S.J., Gleaves, D.H., Cepeda-Benito, A., Silberg, J.L., Kraemer, H.C. & Spiegel, D.,(2001) "The Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: Comment on Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998);". Psychologican Bulletin, 127, 6, 715-733

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