Methods - Drug Studies Flashcards
Animal Exp. to Study Drug Use (P1)
- Used to study the effects of drugs, results applied to offer and insight into human drug taking
- Manipulate the IV (one group of rats given alcohol, the control group is not)
AO3 ‹+› both groups made genetically similar through breeding, control ind. differences -> increases internal validity (confident alcohol is influencing the behaviour of the rats)
AO3 ‹-› requires drugs to be given in an artificial, isolated environment to maintain high control -> lacks generalisability (human drug taking happens in socially in a natural environment)
= D.P research unethical if findings are not generalisable to humans or useful
Animal Exp. to Study Drug Use (P2)
- Behaviour of rats is measured (DV) after manipulating the IV -> do they become more aggressive, increased heart rate etc.
- Conducted over an extended period of time to study LT effects of the drug on the animal’s behaviour
AO3 ‹+› animals mature quicker than humans, able to see if addiction is passed onto the offspring -> able to investigate whether drug use is genetic
= D.P researchers able to isolate animals in an environment, observations and measurements about drug use easier to carry out, not possible with humans
AO3 ‹-› researcher may attribute human qualities to animals (anthropomorphism) -> lead to bias in data collection, making assumptions about how the drugs make the animals feel
Animal Exp. to Study Drug Use (P3)
- Researcher able to control what the animal experiences (food and drink intake, previous exposure to drugs)
- Schramm-Sapyta = studied adolescent rats by exposing them to alcohol and then testing them again as they matured to see if they preferred alcohol over water
AO3 ‹+› Use of Bateson’s cube shows that research has a high benefit to society and and low suffering to animals, viewed as ethical -> researchers able to investigate the effects of drugs on animals and U.As for human drug taking (how to prevent addiction)
AO3 ‹-› animals require 24hr care for their whole lives, may require specialist housing -> costly in terms of time and money compared to human participant who can return home
Animal Exp. to Study Drug Use (Conclusion)
AO3 ‹+› Threshold for ethical guidelines is lower, possible to deliberately expose animals to drugs in an experiment, not possible with humans who must be already taking the drug
AO3 ‹-› animals unable to communicate how the drug makes them feel, unlike humans, restricted to observation of physiological changes in animal behaviour
