Lost in the mall: misrepresentations and misunderstandings

Readers of Ethics and Behavior have been treated to a misrepresentation of my research on planting false memories, to a misstatement of the actual empirical finidngs, and to a distortion of the history of the development of the idea for this line of research. The partisan essay by Crook and Dean which appears in this issue ("'Lost in a Shopping Mall' -- A Breach of Professional Ethics") is disturbing not only because of its errors, exaggerations, and omissions, but because, in some instances, the quality of the argument makes one wonder whether these were innocent mistakes or a deliberate attempt to distort my work. Some of these errors can be explained by simple lack of scientific competence. However, others are sufficiently bizarre that they cast doubt on the process that led to the acceptance of a manuscript written by an individual who has continually made her animosity toward me very publicly known (e.g., Boerner, 1996; Neimark, 1996).