A professor said he regrets causing pain to Holly Petraeus by describing her in an academic study as less attractive than her husband’s younger mistress.
Jukka Savolainen of Wayne State University in Michigan, is one of five academics who used the 2012 David Petraeus sex scandal to examine attitudes toward infidelity. The project found that men were more likely to understand Petraeus’s infidelity when they saw photos contrasting wife Holly with the “more attractive mistress,” Paula Broadwell.
Savolainen, a criminology professor, told the Washington Examiner he did not mean to insult Holly Petraeus, 67. “I assume it was obvious to everyone that Mrs. Petraeus had gone through a deeply hurtful experience,” Savolainen said. “It is upsetting for me to think that this relatively minor research study might add to her distress. I truly hope this is not the case.”
Savolainen came up with the idea for the study following a classroom discussion on the scandal when news broke on the affair in 2012. “There was widespread agreement in the media reports about the attractiveness issue,” he said. “At the time of the data collection, it did not seem controversial to suggest that Mrs. Broadwell was ‘more attractive’ by conventional standards.”
He conducted the study and wrote the subsequent article with Oakland University academics Guilherme Lopes, Andrew Holub, and Todd Shackelford, and University of Nebraska professor Joseph Schwartz.
When asked for comment, Lopes told the Washington Examiner that “after much consideration, the authors decided to decline this interview opportunity.”
The goal of the study was to determine differences in reaction to the scandal between men and women, predicting that men would be less condemning and more understanding of the scandal. In conducting their experiment, the academics separated test subjects into two groups. One was shown a picture of David Petraeus alone, while the other was shown a picture of Petraeus with his wife, Holly, and another picture of Petraeus and Broadwell. Both groups were given matching descriptions of the scandal.
News of the study, first revealed by the Washington Examiner, triggered a fierce backlash.
Petraeus family friend Jill Kelley condemned the study for “bullying” Holly Petraeus. Others similarly denounced how the researchers deemed Holly Petraeus less attractive than Broadwell, 47.
“The claim is insulting. It is also not explicitly verified,” New York University bioethics professor Arthur Caplan told the Washington Examiner. In addition to presenting a moral problem, the use of such a high-profile case might not be scientifically valid, according to Georgetown University bioethics professor Daniel Sulmasy.
“And given the fact that it is an identifiable individual when the study could have been done for scientific purposes without having to name an individual would, I think, raise at least some minor ethical concerns,” Sulmasy said.
Michelle Marzullo, a professor of human sexuality at the California Institute for Integral Studies, raised similar concerns, noting the trauma someone might feel from being rated according to personal attractiveness. “As researchers, that’s ethical harm,” Marzullo said, questioning whether university internal review boards approved the study. I cannot see how, as the function of institutional review boards is usually to stop harm to potential subjects in a study.”
The study passed such a review, Savolainen said. “It was deemed to meet the criteria for IRB exempt category for non-invasive or minimal risk.”
In retrospect, he appeared to reconsider. “I guess I assumed we are dealing with established facts,” Savolainen said. “The idea was not to contribute anything new to the Petraeus story. I appreciate your reminder that even esoteric research should take these issues into account.”
