Key Tenets of Ethics
- Do not harm
- Informed consent
- Protection of privacy
- Valid research design
Examples of Research Prior to Ethic Committees
- WWII Nuremberg trials
- Tuberculosis experiments
- Twin studies - sewing body parts from one onto another
Psychological Ethics Associations
- APA
- British or Australian Psych Society (BPS and APS)
- Do Not Harm
- Physical and mental discomfort
- Long lasting serious harm, might have short-term discomfort
- Also: principle of non-maleficence
- Complementary Principle: principle of beneficence
- Informed Consent
- Legal requirement
- Participants must be given an accurate account of the potential risks before they consent to take part in a study
- Participants must be allowed to withdraw from a study at any time without negative consequences (freedom from coercion), no feeling of penalty or negative impact on participant
- Protection of Privacy
- Confidentiality: experimenters should protect privacy of research participants
- Anonymity: information obtained during researched should be confidential unless otherwise agreed upon
- A Valid Research Design
- Design with potential to yield valuable results
- Research ethics are granted by a panel that weighs up the cost/benefit of the research
- harm/discomfort vs potential value of the research results
- Must be more harm than good
Ethical Review Panels
- The investigator’s conflict in weighing the potential cost to the participant against the potential gain to be accrued from project
Ethics review panels
- Scientists and people from different professions to minimise experimenter bias
- Need to ask
Researchers are not neutral parties
- Need help deciding whether to proceed with a project
Does Henle & Hubbell “egocentricity” in adult conversation fit the Four Tenets of Ethical Research?
- Fear of demand characteristics altering their real behaviour
- Got confederates to hide under the bed of the participants and record behaviour
- Yes. 2. No. 3. Yes. 4. Yes, but creepy
Does Middlemist, Knowles & Matter (1976) personal space invasions in the lavatory: suggestive evidence for arousal fit the Four Tenets of Ethical Research?
- Got confederates to use the urinal closer or further from the participants
- People found this uncomfortable, so they ended up using periscopes from stalls to observe the behaviour
- Maybe. 2. No. 3. Yes. 4. Yes, but creepy
Does Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (1973) fit the Four Tenets of Ethical Research?
- Randomly allocated as prisoners or guards
- Was made realistic as possible
- Prisoners were arrested at home by confederates, but didn’t know that was going to happen
- Guards were given free reign
- Prisoners began to rebel and then break down
- Was eventually called off
- No. 2. No.
Does Milgram’s Obedience Study (1963) fit the Four Tenets of Ethical Research?
- Maybe (believed that they might have done wrong, creating psychological damage). 2. No, deception was used. 3. Yes. 4. Yes.
Deception and Harm
- Deception is often necessary to ensure the validity of studies
- Deception: any misinformation intentionally given to participants
When is it ethical?
- Debriefing and appropriate follow up support if necessary
- Minimal harm
- Always have the right to withdraw from the study, even at the end. Consent can be withdrawn
Is it Ethical to do Studies on Animals
Human physiology resembles many other animals
- Depression, substance-abuse/addiction
Is it right to place the well-being of humans above that of other animals?
- APA guidelines
- There are opposing views
Animal Research Ethics
- Replacement of animalis by other research methods
- Reduction in the number of animals used by means of more advanced statistical techniques
- Refinement of experimental procedures to reduce animal suffering
- Does the potential good outweigh the harm
It is important that whenever animal research is done, research is reviewed by an ethics board which includes scientists, lay people, animal rights advocates and vets
- Unlike human research
- Every possible care is done to minimise harm/discomfort
Scientific Misconduct
- Plagiarism
Conflict of interest
- Researchers benefiting from a particular outcome
- Very careful that research is conducted by scientists do not have a vested interest in the results
- Increases both intentional and unintentional bias
Fabricating data (lying)
- Creating data that doesn’t exist
- 2011 scandal
Selective exclusion of data (falsification)
- Excluding a participant because it didn’t perform the way they wanted
