Week 3 - Research Ethics Flashcards
Define Ethics
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with morality—what it means to behave morally and how people can achieve that goal.
It can also refer to a set of principles and practices that provide moral guidance in a particular field.
Describe the framework of thinking about ethics
Thorough consideration of the ethics of any research project must take into account how each of the four moral principles applies to each of the three groups of people.
Four general moral principles that apply to scientific research:
1. Weighing risks against benefits
2. acting responsibly and with integrity
3. Seeking justice
4. respecting people’s rights and dignity.
Three groups of people that are affected by scientific research:
- The research participants
- The scientific community
- Society more generally.
Describe what makes research ethical
Weighing Risks Against Benefits
Scientific research in psychology can be ethical only if its risks are outweighed by its benefits.
Eg. treatment may harm participants, A risk to society is that research results could be misunderstood or misapplied with harmful consequences.
Describe and give an example of what a confederate is…
**It is not necessarily easy to weigh the risks of research against its benefits because the risks and benefits may not be directly comparable. **
For example, it is common for the risks of a study to be primarily to the research participants but the benefits primarily for science or society. Consider, for example, Stanley Milgram’s original study on obedience to authority (Milgram, 1963).[2] The participants were told that they were taking part in a study on the effects of punishment on learning and were instructed to give electric shocks to another participant each time that participant responded incorrectly on a learning task. With each incorrect response, the shock became stronger—eventually causing the other participant (who was in the next room) to protest, complain about his heart, scream in pain, and finally fall silent and stop responding. If the first participant hesitated or expressed concern, the researcher said that he must continue.
In reality, the other participant was a confederate of the researcher—a helper who pretended to be a real participant—and the protests, complaints, and screams that the real participant heard were an audio recording that was activated when he flipped the switch to administer the “shocks.”
The surprising result of this study was that most of the real participants continued to administer the shocks right through the confederate’s protests, complaints, and screams.
Although this is considered one of the most important results in psychology—with implications for understanding events like the Holocaust or the mistreatment of prisoners by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib—it came at the cost of producing severe psychological stress in the research participants.
Describe and elaborate on moral principle ‘Researchers must act responsibly and with integrity’
Researchers must act responsibly and with integrity. This means carrying out their research in a thorough and competent manner, meeting their professional obligations, and being truthful.
Acting with integrity is important because it promotes trust, which is an essential element of all effective human relationships. Participants must be able to trust that researchers are being honest with them (e.g., about what the study involves), will keep their promises (e.g., to maintain confidentiality), and will carry out their research in ways that maximize benefits and minimize risk.
An important issue here is the use of deception. Some research questions (such as Milgram’s) are difficult or impossible to answer without deceiving research participants. Thus acting with integrity can conflict with doing research that advances scientific knowledge and benefits society. We will consider how psychologists generally deal with this conflict shortly.
Describe and elaborate on ‘seeking justice’ moral principle…
Seeking Justice
Researchers must conduct their research in a** just manner**. They should treat their participants fairly, for example, by giving them adequate compensation for their participation and making sure that benefits and risks are distributed across all participants.
Eg. At a broader societal level, members of some groups have historically faced more than their fair share of the risks of scientific research, including people who are institutionalized, are disabled, or belong to racial or ethnic minorities.
Eg. Tuskegee syphilis study - African american men, treated for ‘bad blood’, observed how syphillis affected their bodies. Refused penicillin.
Define and elaborate on ‘respect people’s rights and dignity’ (moral principle)
Researchers must respect people’s rights and dignity as human beings.
One element of this is respecting their autonomy—their right to make their own choices and take their own actions free from coercion.
Of fundamental importance here is the concept of informed consent. This means that researchers obtain and document people’s agreement to participate in a study after having informed them of everything that might reasonably be expected to affect their decision.
Another element of respecting people’s rights and dignity is respecting their privacy—their right to decide what information about them is shared with others.
This means that researchers must maintain confidentiality, which is essentially an agreement not to disclose participants’ personal information without their consent or some appropriate legal authorization.
Even more ideally participants can maintain anonymity, which is when their name and other personally identifiable information is not collected at all.
Describe Unavoidable Ethical Conflict
There will almost always be a conflict between risks and benefits. Research that is beneficial to one group (e.g., the scientific community) can be harmful to another (e.g., the research participants), creating especially** difficult tradeoffs**.
In general, this means:
- Thoroughly and carefully thinking through the ethical issues that are raised
- Minimizing the risks
- Weighing the risks against the benefits.
It also means being able to explain one’s ethical decisions to others, seeking feedback on them, and ultimately taking responsibility for them.
Describe the history of ethics codes
One of the earliest ethics codes was the Nuremberg Code—a set of 10 principles written in 1947 in conjunction with the trials of Nazi physicians accused of shockingly cruel research on concentration camp prisoners during World War II.
The Nuremberg Code was particularly clear about the importance of carefully weighing risks against benefits and the need for informed consent.
The Declaration of Helsinki is a similar ethics code that was created by the World Medical Council in 1964. Among the standards that it added to the Nuremberg Code was that research with human participants should be based on a written protocol—a detailed description of the research—that is reviewed by an independent committee. The Declaration of Helsinki has been revised several times, most recently in 2004.
In the United States, concerns about the Tuskegee study and others led to the publication in 1978 of a set of federal guidelines called the Belmont Report.
The Belmont Report explicitly recognized the principle of seeking justice, including the importance of conducting research in a way that distributes risks and benefits fairly across different groups at the societal level.
It also recognized the importance of **respect for persons, which acknowledges individuals’ autonomy and protection for those with diminished autonomy (e.g., prisoners, children), and translates to the need for informed consent. **
Finally, it recognized the principle of beneficence, which underscores the importance of maximizing the benefits of research while minimizing harms to participants and society. **The Belmont Report became the basis of a set of laws—the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects—that apply to research conducted, supported, or regulated by the federal government.
An extremely important part of these regulations is that universities, hospitals, and other institutions that receive support from the federal government must establish an institutional review board (IRB)—a committee that is responsible for reviewing research protocols for potential ethical problems. An IRB must consist of at least five people with varying backgrounds, including;
members of different professions
scientists
nonscientists
men
women
at least one person not otherwise affiliated with the institution.
The IRB helps to make sure that the** risks of the proposed research are minimized, the benefits outweigh the risks, the research is carried out in a fair manner, and the informed consent procedure is adequate.**
The federal regulations also distinguish research that poses three levels of risk.
Exempt research is the lowest level or risk and includes research on the effectiveness of normal educational activities, the use of standard psychological measures and surveys of a nonsensitive nature that are administered in a way that maintains confidentiality, and research using existing data from public sources.
It is called exempt because once approved, it is exempt from regular, continuous review.
Expedited research poses a somewhat higher risk than exempt, but still exposes participants to risks that are no greater than minimal risk (those encountered by healthy people in daily life or during routine physical or psychological examinations).
Expedited review is done by by one member of the IRB or by a separate committee under the authority of the IRB that can only approve minimal risk research (many departments of psychology have such separate committees).
Finally, research that does not qualify for exempt or expedited review is greater than minimal risk research must be reviewed by the full board of IRB members.
Describe the APA ethics code
The APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (also known as the APA Ethics Code) was first published in 1953 and has been revised several times since then, most recently in 2010.
It includes about 150 specific ethical standards that psychologists and their students are expected to follow.
Much of the APA Ethics Code concerns the clinical practice of psychology—advertising one’s services, setting and collecting fees, having personal relationships with clients, and so on.
For our purposes, the most relevant part is Standard 8: Research and Publication.
https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/chapter/from-moral-principles-to-ethics-codes/
Describe informed consent
Standards 8.02 to 8.05 are about informed consent.
Again, informed consent means:
- Obtaining and documenting people’s agreement to participate in a study
- Having informed them of everything that might reasonably be expected to affect their decision.
This includes:
- Details of the procedure
- The risks and benefits of the research
- The fact that they have the right to decline to participate or to withdraw from the study
- The consequences of doing so
- Any legal limits to confidentiality.
For example, some states require researchers who learn of child abuse or other crimes to report this information to authorities.
Although having participants read and sign a consent form might be enough when they are competent adults with the necessary ability and motivation, many participants do not actually read consent forms or read them but do not understand them.
Note also that there are situations in which informed consent is not necessary.
These include situations in which the research is not expected to cause any harm and the procedure is straightforward or the study is conducted in the context of people’s ordinary activities.
For example, if you wanted to sit outside a public building and observe whether people hold the door open for people behind them, you would not need to obtain their informed consent.
Similarly, if a college instructor wanted to compare two legitimate teaching methods across two sections of his research methods course, he would not need to obtain informed consent from his students.
Describe ‘deception’
Deception of participants in psychological research can take a variety of forms:
- Misinforming participants about the purpose of a study
- Using confederates
- Using phony equipment like Milgram’s shock generator, and presenting participants with false feedback about their performance (e.g., telling them they did poorly on a test when they actually did well).
Deception also includes not informing participants of the full design or true purpose of the research even if they are not actively misinformed (Sieber, Iannuzzo, & Rodriguez, 1995).[2]
Note, however, that the APA Ethics Code takes a more moderate approach—allowing deception when the benefits of the study outweigh the risks, participants cannot reasonably be expected to be harmed, the research question cannot be answered without the use of deception, and participants are informed about the deception as soon as possible.
This approach acknowledges that not all forms of deception are equally bad.
Describe Debriefing
Standard 8.08 is about debriefing. This is the process of informing research participants as soon as possible of the purpose of the study, revealing any deception, and correcting any other misconceptions they might have as a result of participating.
Debriefing also involves** minimizing harm **that might have occurred.
For example, an experiment on the effects of being in a sad mood on memory might involve inducing a sad mood in participants by having them think sad thoughts, watch a sad video, and/or listen to sad music.
Debriefing would be the time to return participants’ moods to normal by having them think happy thoughts, watch a happy video, or listen to happy music.
Describe treatment of ‘Nonhuman Animal Subjects’
Standard 8.09 is about the humane treatment and care of nonhuman animal subjects.
Although most contemporary research in psychology does not involve nonhuman animal subjects, a significant minority of it does—especially in the study of learning and conditioning, behavioral neuroscience, and the development of drug and surgical therapies for psychological disorders.
The use of nonhuman animal subjects in psychological research is similar to the use of deception in that there are those who argue that it is rarely, if ever, ethically acceptable (Bowd & Shapiro, 1993).[4]
Clearly, nonhuman animals are incapable of giving informed consent.
Yet they can be subjected to numerous procedures that are likely to cause them suffering.
They can be confined, deprived of food and water, subjected to pain, operated on, and ultimately euthanized. (Of course, they can also be observed benignly in natural or zoo-like settings.)
Others point out that psychological research on nonhuman animals has resulted in many important benefits to humans, including the development of behavioral therapies for many disorders, more effective pain control methods, and antipsychotic drugs (Miller, 1985).[5]
It has also resulted in benefits to nonhuman animals, including alternatives to shooting and poisoning as means of controlling them.
As with deception, the APA acknowledges that the benefits of research on nonhuman animals can outweigh the costs, in which case it is ethically acceptable.
However, researchers must use alternative methods when they can. When they cannot, they must acquire and care for their subjects humanely and minimize the harm to them. For more information on the APA’s position on nonhuman animal subjects, see the website of the APA’s Committee on Animal Research and Ethics (http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/index.aspx).
Describe scholarly integrity
Standards 8.10 to 8.15 are about scholarly integrity.
These include the obvious points that researchers must not fabricate data or plagiarize.
Plagiarism means using others’ words or ideas without proper acknowledgment. Proper acknowledgment generally means indicating direct quotations with quotation marks and providing a citation to the source of any quotation or idea used.
Self-plagiarism is also considered unethical and refers to publishing the same material more than once. In other words, researchers should not borrow prior phrasing from their other published works, just as students should not submit the same work to more than one class.
The remaining standards make some less obvious but equally important points. Researchers should not publish the same data a second time as though it were new, they should share their data with other researchers, and as peer reviewers, they should keep the unpublished research they review confidential.
Note that the authors’ names on published research—and the order in which those names appear—should reflect the importance of each person’s contribution to the research.
