Chapter 3 Flashcards
Four Principles of Scientific research
- Weighing risks against benefits
- Acting responsibly and with integrity
- Seeking Justice
- Respecting Peoples Rights and dignity
Who should we consider with the ethics of science?
- Research Participants
- Scientific community
- Society
What are some ethics of Science
- Weighing risks against benefits: Cost benefit analysis. Costs are an uninteresting study or a poorly designed one or one that exceeds resource constraints or harms people. Just like the anti-vax movement
- Acting responsibly and with integrity: Being truthful, competent and scientifically valid. Its important to be honorable because other people need to trust you.
- Seeking Justice: participants should be treated fairly, compensated fairly and that the benefits and risks are distributed evenly
- Respecting Peoples Rights and dignity: Respect a participants autonomy, privacy and keep confidentiality, get their informed consent and make sure they remain anonymous
What are two important studies that were not ethical
Milgram’s study and the Tuskegee experiment
Nuremberg Code
10 Principles set after WWII and the cruel Nazi experiments
Declaration of Helsinki
created in 1964 to add further provisions to the Nuremberg Code which introduced protocols (independently reviewed detailed description) and has been revised several times, most recently in 2004
Belmont Report
Fueled by concerns of the Tuskegee study . Put in the seeking justice ethic, respect for persons ethic also maximized beneficence (Maximizing research utility while minimizing human harm)
Federal Policy for the Protection of Human subjects
apply to research conducted, supported, or regulated by the federal government. The government must also establish a institutional review board or IRB to ensure beneficence
Three levels of Risk:
- Exempt Research: Low Risk and no real deviance from ethics
- Expedited Research: Somewhat higher risk but still no greater than minimal risk
- Greater than minimal risk: Does not fall in the other two categories and must be reviewed by the full board of the IRB
Informed Consent to Research
-psychologists must inform participants of all necessary details. They have the right to decline to know the consequences of withdrawing, reasonable knowledge of risks, research benefits, limits of confidentiality, incentives for participation, emergency contacts
-Also the experimental nature of treatment, the services not part of the control group, how control and experimental groups will be assigned, alternatives in case they want to withdraw, compensation for participating
-They must know the risks and benefits, they need to read and sign a consent form, must help participants navigate the legalese of the consent form
Is informed Consent always needed?
Informed consent is not always needed. Such as when there is not obvious harm. Like observing how often people hold the door open.
Is deception of participants ok?
Often considered unethical however there is a clause that allows it if the benefits of research outweighs the risk to the participant. Deception is needed.
Debriefing
As soon as the study is done, revealing what is was about and what the deception was
Ethics on non-human animal subjects?
Most studies use humans but a few involving animals in conditioning trials still uses animals. Animals can’t give informed consent and are subjugated to cruel experiments. They must use non-cruel methods when they can but often can’t.
Describe several strategies for identifying and minimizing risks and deception in psychological research.
- Know and accept your ethical responsibilities: lack of awareness is not defense of unethical conduct. Must understand the code. How to prepare for the IRB to review an experiment
- Identify and Minimize Risks: Identify physical, psychological and confidentiality risks. Know some people may be more sensitive to things than others. Once you know the risks, reduce them by modifying the experiment design. You can even modify a previous design. Also use pre-screening to identify participants who are high-risk. Often with the use of questionnaires . Also making sure confidentiality is maintained and keeping confidentiality forms separate from data.
- Identify and Minimize deception: Deception is ethical if there is no way to answer your question without it but it should still be minimized. It is ok to reveal the deception later during debriefing as long as the informed consent process is covered.
- Weigh Risks against Benefits: Dangers to participants vs benefits for the larger community including the participants
