Ethical Issues in Social Influence Research

Question 1

The nature of social influence research means that it….

Answer 1

… raises a number of ethical issues that have had a signficant impact on the way psychological research is conducted

Question 2

Two ethical issues in Asch’s study of conformity:

Answer 2

1. Lack of informed consent - ppts not informed regarding the fact that the study was investigating conformity rather than visual perception.
2. Deception - Asch misled ppts into believing the other members of the study were genuine ppts when in reality they were confederates

Question 3

Two ethical issues in Zimbardo’s study of conformity to social roles:

Answer 3

1. Psychological harm - the ppts were subject to psychological harm bc the prisoners were treated in a degrading way and eventually a prisoner had to be released 36 hours after the study after showing psychological disturbances
2. Right to withdraw - ppts lacked this bc in many cases where prisoners asked to leave, they were forced to remain by the guards and Zimbardo did nothing to interfere with this.

Question 4

Two ethical issues in Milgram’s study of obedience:

Answer 4

1. Deception - ppts believed the electric shocks being administered were real and cuasing genuine harm. Furthermore, they believed the study was a test of punishment on learning instead of a test of obedience.
2. Right to withdraw - ppts lacked this as when they asked to leave the study, the experimenter used ‘verbal prods’ such as “please continue” to make them remain in the study

Question 5

Social influence research that breaks ethical guidelines can have both costs and benefits that need to be taken into account.

Answer 5

Benefit: Milgram’s studies of obedience revealed that apparently normal members of the public can commit acts that would cause significant harm to others - helped to educate the wider population about the dangers of blind obedience to authority and the need to question whether the orders of an authority figure are morally acceptable.

Cost: Participants who took part of the study could have suffered both short-term and long-term harm due to the stressful nature of the procedure and the negative knowledge gained of themselves.

These costs and benefits must be weighed up when performing research to ensure the knowledge gained is valuable enough to justify any ethical violations.

Question 6

Ethical violations are necessary to gain valid results from social influence research.

Answer 6

For example, in Asch’s research on conformity he had to withhold information like the true aim of the study and make participants believe that the other members of the groups were genuine participants. If participants were aware of the true nature of the aim and that the other groups members were confederates, their behaviour would have been highly unnatural and mean that the study would no longer be a valid measure of conformity. Since ethical violations are necessary for social influence research to gain valid conclusions, researchers dealt with them by for example providing participants with a full-debrief on the study once the experiment was complete.

Question 7

The ethical implications of studies such as Milgram and Zimbardo had a large role to play in the development of ethical principles in Psychology.

Answer 7

Prior to research by Milgram and Zimbardo researchers had few formal guidelines about how their research should be conducted. Due to the controversy raised by these studies, formal ethical guidelines were drawn up by the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society and are followed by researchers today. Furthermore, in present day research, psychological studies can only be conducted once an ethics committee (appointed by the research institution) are satisfied that all efforts have been made to avoid breaking ethical guidelines. Therefore, the ethical issues raised by social influence research have led to significant improvements in the ethical practice of psychological research.