Chapter 3 - Ethical Research Flashcards
Provide at least three examples of unethical research and conduct
- Milgram Experiment (1963)
- Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
- Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (2002)
Milgram Experiment (1963)
The participants were told that they were to teach other learners correct answers to a series of test items.
The participants were told to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item—that the shock would help them to learn. The participants gave (or believed they gave) the learners shocks, which increased in 15-volt increments, all the way up to 450 volts.
In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them.
The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble.
Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive.
Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
Participants were randomly assigned to act as either ‘guards’ or ‘prisoners’.
Prisoners were confined to cells while guards were responsible for all aspects of the mock prison’s function.
Very quickly the guards began harassing and abusing the prisoners and the prisoners began to show signs of severe anxiety and hopelessness—they began tolerating the guards’ abuse.
The experiment had to be stopped only 6 days into the planned 14 days.
Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (2002)
James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two contract psychologists devised the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA’s Detention and interrogation Program.
The American Psychological Association (APA), the primary professional organ of psychologists in the United States, collaborated with the Bush administration in secret to write legal and ethical justifications for the torture.
Narrate the history of research ethics codes
Hippocratic Oath
- A declaration of a physician’s dedication to the humanitarian goals of medicine.
- The original oath was written in Ionic Greek, between the fifth and third centuries BC.
- The Declaration of Geneva was intended as a revision of the Hippocratic - Oath to a formulation of that oath’s moral truths that could be comprehended and acknowledged in a modern way.
The Nuremberg Code
- A set of ethical research principles for human experimentation created by the court in U.S. v Brandt, one of the subsequent Nuremberg trials that were held after the Second World War.
- The Nuremberg Code focuses on the human rights of research subjects.
The World Medical Association (WMA)
- Developed the Declaration of Helsinki as a statement of ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects, including research on identifiable human material and data.
- The Declaration of Helsinki is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation and is regarded as the foundational document on human research ethics.
- The Declaration of Helsinki focuses on the obligations of physician-investigators to research subjects.
Explain three core principles of ethical research as defined by the Tri-Council Policy Statement
Respect for human dignity is expressed through three core principles:
1. Respect for Persons
2. Concern for Welfare
3. Justice
Seven Proposed Requirements for Ethical Research
- Value: enhancements of health or knowledge must be derived from the research
- Scientific Validity: the research must be methodologically rigorous
- Fair Subject Selection: scientific objectives, not vulnerability or privilege, and the potential for and distribution of risks and benefits, should determine communities selected as study sites and the inclusion criteria for individual subjects
- Favorable Risk-benefit Ratio: within the context of standard clinical practice and the research protocol, risks must be minimized, potential benefits enhanced, and the potential benefits to individuals and knowledge gained for society must outweigh the risks
- Independent Review: unaffiliated individuals must review the research and approve, amend, or terminate it
- Informed Consent: individuals should be informed about the research and provide their voluntary consent
- Respect for Enrolled Subjects: subjects should have their privacy protected, the opportunity to withdraw, and their well-being monitored.
Generate one example each of exempt, minimal risk, and greater than minimal risk research
Exempt Research: publicly available through a mechanism set out by legislation or regulation and that is protected by law; or in the public domain and the individuals to whom the information refers have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Minimal Risk Research: research in which the probability and
magnitude of possible harms implied by participation in the
research are no greater than those encountered by participants in those aspects of their everyday life that relate to the research.
Greater than Minimal Risk Research: REBs take a conservative approach to determining whether research minimal risk. If there is any ambiguity, research will be classified as greater than minimal risk.
Describe the 3R Tenet for research with animals
Replacement: refers to methods which avoid or replace the use of sentient animals in a study where they would otherwise have been used.
This includes both absolute replacements (i.e. replacing
animals with non-sentient systems, such as computer programs or cell cultures) and relative replacements (i.e. replacing sentient animals with animals that current scientific evidence indicates have a significantly lower potential for pain perception, such as some invertebrates).
Discriminate between three forms of professional ethics violations and offer at least four remedies
