SCLOA - Discuss ethical considerations related to research studies in SCLOA

Question 1

issues of ethical consideration

Answer 1

• informed consent/deception

- working with children

Question 2

when is deception acceptable?

Answer 2

• if it doesn’t result in long-term harm
• if it can be justified for research purposes
• phenomena in psychology would not be
  able to be researched if deception was not allowed
• as people would guess at the nature of the experiment
• thus influencing results

Question 3

ambiguity of acceptability of deception in a study

Answer 3

• the main ethical consideration to be made is: how much stress will the deception cause?
• participants of Milgram’s obedience studies reported high levels of stress
• because they believed they were giving real electric shocks to the learners
• however, Milgram’s participants later thanked him for allowing them to participate in the study
• furthermore, if they were told from the beginning that the electric shocks were not real (in the interest of full transparency), it would not have had the same effect

Question 4

when is working with children acceptable?

Answer 4

• parents’ consent required
• researchers must be sensitive to the needs of children
• the Bandura (1965) Bobo Doll experiments were criticized not for their violence but for the role models
• the role models made aggressive statements that were not usual for children to witness
• however, Wells-Wilbon and Holland’s 2001 study on the influence of positive role models on African American children was praised
• as the approach they took was deliberately designed for dealing with children