Chapter 2 Ethics in Psychological Research Flashcards
Ethics
A set of principles prescribing morally correct behaviours.
Research Psychologist must
Research psychologists must (a) treat human research participants with respect and in a way that maintains their rights and dignity, (b) care for the welfare of animals when they are the subjects of research, and (c) be scrupulously honest in the treatment of data
The Little Albert Experiment - Watson
The purpose of the study is to see if Albert could be conditioned to fear.
Watson and Rayner (1920) decided to use loud noise, produced when Watson struck a steel bar with a hammer just behind the infant’s head. To see if the fear could be attached to a neutral stimulus, a white rat, the conditioning procedure was to pair the loud noise with the rat. When Albert reached out to touch the rat, “the bar was struck immediately behind his head”. The infant jumped violently and fell forward, burying his face in the mattress” (p. 4). After several trials, the loud noise was no longer needed; Albert was now afraid of the rat
Critical Incidents
Method, used by ethics committees, that surveys psychologists and asks for examples of unethical behaviour by psychologists.
Belmont Report
which includes three basic principles for research with human subjects: Respect for persons, Beneficence, and Justice.
APA code - five general principles
1) Beneficence and Nonmaleficence establish the principle that psychologists must constantly weigh the benefits and the costs of the research they conduct and seek to achieve the greatest good in their research with little harm done to others.
2) Fidelity and Responsibility obligates researchers to be constantly aware of their responsibility to society and reminds them always to exemplify the highest standards of professional behavior in their role as researchers.
3) Integrity compels researchers to be scrupulously honest in all aspects of the research enterprise.
- minimize deception
4) Justice obligates researchers to treat everyone involved in the research enterprise with fairness and to maintain a level of expertise that reduces the chances of their work showing any form of bias.
- avoid biases
5) Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity translates into a special need for research psychologists to be vigorous in their efforts to safeguard the confidentiality and protect the rights of those volunteering as research participants.
- confidentiality
research participants (or subjects)
A person who takes part in and contributes data to a research study in psychology; see Subject. - A human or animal research participant; humans volunteering for research are now called either subjects or research participants, while nonhuman animals are typically called subjects.
Institutional Review Board (IRB)
University committee responsible for evaluating whether research proposals provide adequate protection of the rights of participants; must exist for any college or university receiving federal funds for research.
- Consist 5 people usually
- Researchers seeking IRB approval typically submit a rationale for the study and a description of research procedures, a statement about potential risks to participants, how these risks will be alleviated and why they can be justified, a copy of the study’s informed consent form, and copies of materials to be used in the experiment.
- An important component of an IRB’s decision about a proposal involves determining the degree of risk to be encountered by participants.
- risk = In the ethical decision-making that goes into the planning of a study, the chance that participating in research would have greater costs than benefits to the participant.
- when participants are “at risk,” a full IRB review will occur and experimenters must convince the committee that (a) the value of the study outweighs the risk, (b) the study could not be completed in any other fashion, and (c) they will scrupulously follow the remaining ethical guidelines to ensure those contributing data are informed and well treated.
- Issue: whether to judge methodological adequacy IRB must know about methodology (design of study)
- lack of consistency among IRBs
Informed Consent
informed consent = The idea that persons should be given sufficient information about a study to make their decision to participate as a research subject informed and voluntary.
-Deception rationale: desire to have subject act naturally
o Has to be the only viable way
o Deception is a cost – benefits must outweigh
The Milgram Experiment: 1963 – to see how normal people can conduct illegal acts just because they are told to by the authority. Shocked people to lethal levels just because scientist told them to
Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) and Assent
Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) follows a set of guidelines that expand upon some of the provisions of the code for adults. Thus, because children (anyone under age 18) might not be able to fully understand consent forms, their parents or legal guardians are the ones who give consent
- To give assent is to say “yes”; the SRCD code of ethics for research with children refers to the willingness of the child to participate in the study.
- According to the SRCD code, assent occurs when “the child shows some form of agreement to participate without necessarily comprehending the full significance of the research necessary to give informed consent”
- Assent also means the researcher has a responsibility to monitor experiments with children and to stop them if it appears that undue stress is being experienced. It is up to the researcher to be aware
- is imperative to ensure that participants do not feel coerced into volunteering for a study.
Elements of Consent
-Study’s basic description
• Enough information to decide whether to participate (a clear format that is easily understood for the participants, such as a child, or adults no academic jargon)
-When writing a consent form, researchers try to avoid jargon, with the aim of making the form as easy to understand as possible.
-How long it will take
-May quit at any time
-Confidentiality and anonymity statement (name may be linked to the data but it won’t be released)
-Contact information (researcher, IRB chair)
-Opportunity to review final results of the study
no-consent
(not required)
- Some surveys,
- Educational research done in a classroom setting,
- Archival research (past research)
- Observational research
Deception
- APA code indicates subjects might experience deception in a study if it is determined by the researcher, and agreed to by the IRB, that the study could not be done in any other fashion. That is, participants might not be told the complete details of a study at its outset, or they might be misled about some of the procedures or about the study’s purpose
- A research strategy in which participants are not told all the details of an experiment at its outset; used for the purpose of avoiding demand characteristics.
- the level of deception is minor in most research. Typically, it involves the withholding of some information about the study rather than a cover story that creates the impression that the study concerns topic A when it really involves topic B (ex; the memory of words)
Debriefing
- After the study is over, the researcher has an additional task, called debriefing, during which the researcher answers questions the participants might have and tells them about the purpose(s) of the study.
- Debriefing = A post-experimental session in which the experimenter explains the study’s purpose to participants, reduces any discomfort they felt and answers any questions they pose.
Debriefing circumstance - participant crosstalk
in some circumstances, the immediate debriefing can be incomplete. This situation occurs most frequently when some deception is involved, college students are the population under study, and the experimenter is concerned about participants talking to other potential participants (classmates). = sometimes referred to as participant crosstalk
