The Rind et al. controversy was a debate in the scientific literature, public media, and government legislatures in the United States regarding a 1998 peer reviewed meta-analysis of the self-reported harm caused by child sexual abuse (CSA).
The Rind paper has been quoted by people and organizations advocating age of consent reform, pedophile or pederasty groups, in support of their efforts to change attitudes towards pedophilia and to decriminalize sexual activity between adults and minors (children or adolescents).
[10][11] In 1997, psychology professor Bruce Rind of Temple University and doctoral student Philip Tromovitch of the University of Pennsylvania published "A meta-analytic review of findings from national samples on psychological correlates of child sexual abuse", a literature review in The Journal of Sex Research of seven studies regarding adjustment problems of victims of child sexual abuse (CSA).
[2] In 1998, Rind, Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman (then a professor at the University of Michigan) published "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples", a meta-analysis in the Psychological Bulletin of 59 studies (36 published studies, 21 unpublished doctoral dissertations, and 2 unpublished master's theses) with an aggregate sample size of 35,703 college students (13,704 men and 21,999 women).
Strong reactions ultimately resulted, from both psychologists and psychiatrists who study sexual abuse and treat victims, and from social conservatives and later, from most of the US Congress.
[13] In March 1999, conservative talk show host Laura Schlessinger criticized the study as "junk science" and stated that, since its conclusions were contrary to conventional wisdom, its findings should never have been released.
Shortly thereafter, the North American Man/Boy Love Association posted an approving review of the study on their website, furthering the impression that the piece was an endorsement of pedophilia.
[15] The paper eventually provoked a reaction from several conservative American members of Congress, notably the Republican representatives Matt Salmon of Arizona and Tom DeLay of Texas, who both condemned the study as advocating for the normalization of pedophilia.
In an internal organization email, APA Executive Vice-President Raymond D. Fowler stated that, because of the controversy, the article's methodology, analysis and the process by which it had been approved for publication were reviewed and found to be sound.
[17] In June 1999, Fowler announced in an open letter to DeLay that there would be an independent review of the paper and stated that, from a public policy perspective, some language used in the article was inflammatory and inconsistent with the position of the APA's stance on CSA.
The APA also implemented a series of actions designed to prevent the study from being used in legal arguments to defend CSA, and stated an independent review would be undertaken of the scientific accuracy and validity of the report.
[22] The resolution passed the Senate by a voice vote (100-0) on July 30, 1999[20] and was greeted among psychologists with concern due to the perceived chilling effect it might have among researchers.
Stephanie Dallam stated that, after reviewing the evidence, the paper was best described as "an advocacy article that inappropriately uses science in an attempt to legitimatize its findings".
Lilienfeld reported this subsequent rejection on several psychology Internet fora, which produced an intense response and resulted in the APA and American Psychologist ultimately printing the article as part of a special issue focusing on the controversy.
[8][27] Rind, Bauserman and Tromovitch responded to this criticism by saying 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.
[27] Rind et al. replied that Spiegel misrepresented their analysis, since they did not use Landis' study in the meta-analysis of childhood sexual abuse – symptom correlations, but only for examining the self-reported effects of CSA.
[22]: p.177 Spiegel criticized that Rind et al. included a long list of measured variables in order to appear comprehensive, but remarkably omitted posttraumatic stress disorder - "the most salient symptom" - from their analysis.
However, they argue, "What [they] did report as significantly different was the contrast between male and female effect size estimates for the all-types-of-consent groups, where rus = .04 and .11, respectively.
[28] Critics also argued that Rind et al.'s statistical approach for controlling for family environment as a cause of maladjustment was conceptually and methodologically invalid.
[12] Dallam, however, addressed the topic of several prior studies having found statistically significant relations between CSA and maladjustment even after controlling for family environment.
[8] Rind et al.'s model of "assumed properties of child sexual abuse," (that is, of universal and pervasive harm in all victims of CSA) has been criticized as a straw man assertion in that it is both simplistic and misleading.
[11][39] The reactions of victims in their adult lives have been found to be extremely varied, ranging from severe to nearly unnoticeable, and many pathologies are not diagnosable in the strictly clinical sense Rind uses.
Victims often have a flawed or distorted appraisal of their abuse, minimize the impact as adults often do with traumatic events, and fail to connect distressing and sometimes debilitating pathologies with their experiences.
[9] Despite the authors' comments that the findings of the paper "do not imply that moral or legal definitions of or views on behaviors currently classified as CSA" should be changed,[1] the study caught the attention of, and was used by, advocates for pedophilia.
Tavris expressed her belief that the study could have been interpreted positively as an example of psychological resilience in the face of adversity, and noted that CSA causing little or no harm in some individuals is not an endorsement of the act, nor does it make it any less illegal.
For example, a few studies make reference to the paper's findings about "consensual" encounters, but approach it from the opposite direction (i.e., that the use of force causes more intense negative outcomes).
[44] Heather Ulrich, author of the aforementioned replication of the meta-analysis, later drew on the findings to study the reasons for the variability in outcomes of CSA victims, such as attributional style (individual's causal explanations for why the abuse occurred), family environment, and social support.