appearance, or sex appeal.
- Ask for consent before you hug or
rub the back of anyone you don’t
know well or over whom you
have power.
- Do not call people by gendered titles
or pronouns unless they have di-
rectly disclosed their gender, and
“do not call individuals by non-dis-
closed gender titles or pronouns.”
They have to tell you; you are not
permitted to ask attendees about
their sexual identity.
- Do not make generalizations about
any “identity group” or make dis-
paraging comments.
- Do not make “uninvited judgments
regarding a person’s lifestyle
choices and practices, including
those related to food, health, par-
enting, sex, and employment.”
- People at SSSS will obviously talk
about sexuality, but whereas it is
fine to talk about the content of
your sex research, do not ask at-
tendees about their own sexual be-
havior.
- Don’t get drunk, stoned, or high on
anything “that might lead to inter-
ference with the scientific and so-
cial agendas.”
How are you doing? Can you keep
the “aspirational” standards separate
from the “expected” ones? But now
that you’ve gotten the point—that SSSS
expects you to behave like a grown-up
and not a rude, drunken boor—you get
to the list of “prohibited behaviors,
most of which are illegal”:
- Repeatedly violating the “expected
behaviors” despite being asked to
stop.
- Sustained and repeated disruption dur-
ing talks.
- Engaging in sexual behavior (e.g.,
kissing; touching the buttocks,
breasts, or genitals; oral, anal, or
vaginal sex) without the other per-
son’s consent.
- Physically threatening or stalking any
attendee.
- Using violent language or threats of
violence.
- Encouraging another individual to
commit violence or engage in
self-harm.
- Repeatedly photographing or
recording someone without their
permission.
- Repeated sexual flirtations, advances,
or propositions that continue after
the other person has communi-
cated a lack of interest.
- Epithets, slurs, or negative stereotyp-
ing; threatening, intimidating, or
hostile acts; jokes and display or
circulation of written material or
visual images that denigrate or
show hostility or aversion toward
an individual or group.
- Retaliating against someone who re-
ports a violation of this code of
conduct.
One long-time member of SSSS
wrote to the board wondering why a
professional Code of Conduct did not
include other behaviors that annoy at-
tendees. How about “no cellphones and
texting during talks,” “no unreadable
power points,” “no exceeding your al-
lotted time and failing to leave time for
the others in your symposium”? She
added that while she appreciated “the
efforts and good intentions behind this
document,” she was concerned about
the proliferation of lengthy documents
like this one. “It feels to me like a heavy
cloak of moralistic finger-wagging
rather than inviting more good work in
a collegial atmosphere,” she said.
Precisely. As a social psycholo-
gist, I wondered what this document
specifies that the organization’s mem-
bers don’t already know, and, more
important, what effect it would have
on anyone’s actual behavior. As I read
the SSSS Code of Conduct, I thought
of how children react to all the finger-
wagging “don’ts” that adults are for-
ever telling them: “Don’t hit your
sister. Don’t be a bully. Don’t be
greedy. Don’t leave messes.” How
many say, “Ok, mom, I won’t”? More
likely, they continue the prohibited
(but otherwise satisfying) misbehav-
iors and justify them: “I’m not a
bully—he started it.” “It’s her fault.”
“He spilled the jam, not me.”
Adults, as far as I can tell, are no
different. Most sexists and racists deny
that they are prejudiced; even Donald
Trump, with his long-documented his-
tory of discrimination against African
Americans, claimed that he is “the
least racist person you’ve ever met.”
Will anyone recognize their own disap-
proved-of behavior? It would be like
having a prohibition against being ex-
cruciatingly boring in your lectures
and assuming that the worst bores
would recognize themselves immedi-
ately and sign up for lecture-improve-
ment-classes.
Moreover, notice how many of the
prohibited behaviors are simultaneously
specific and vague—quite an achieve-
ment in and of itself. They sound clear,
but any psychologist would realize that
human beings have an annoying ten-
dency to disagree on their interpreta-
tion of any given act—and give the
“rightness” of their own interpretation
the benefit of the doubt. I’d like to be
“welcoming and respectful” to you, a
person from a different generation or
country or ethnic group from mine, but
what if my good intentions clash with
your hypersensitive response? What if
my cultural tradition is to greet a col-
league with a kiss on each cheek or
stand closer than most Northern Euro-
peans like, and another person’s isn’t?
Why am I the one who is automatically
in violation?
At the other end of the spectrum
from SSSS’s code, here is what the
board of the Society for Applied Re-
search in Memory and Cognition unan-
imously approved:
SARMAC is committed to being a
friendly, supportive, and inclusive
professional society, one in which
everyone is treated with respect.
We work hard so that our confer-
ences deliver on that commit-
ment. If your experiences during
the conference fall short of our ex-
pectations, please speak with a
member of the Governing Board,
and we’ll do what we can to help.
Couldn’t have said it better, or
more succinctly, myself.
volume 25 number 1 2020 W W W. S K E P T I C. C O M 7
