Research Ethics

The APA Guidelines

Protecting the Welfare of Animal Subjects
Fraud in Science
Plagiarism
Ethical Reports
TODAY’S TOPICS
 "On Being Sane in Insane Places"

a study in which eight people without mental illness got themselves admitted to psychiatric institutions —
Rosenhan wanted to see whether mental health professionals could actually distinguish between psychologically well
people and those with mental illnesses.
 Asch Conformity Experiment

Have you done something

that is wrong and
convincing your friend that
it is right?
THE BYSTANDER EFFECT
Inhibiting influence of the presence of others on a person’s
willingness to help someone in need.
Research has shown that, even in an emergency, a bystander
is less likely to extend help when he or she is in the real or
imagined presence of others than when he or she is alone.

The bystander effect became a subject of significant interest

following the brutal murder of American woman Kitty
Genovese in 1964. Genovese, returning home late from work,
was viciously attacked and sexually assaulted by a man with a
knife while walking home to her apartment complex from a
nearby parking lot.
 Milgram Obedience Experiment

Most people will hurt

others if told to do so by
authority

Agree or Disagree?

In the 1960s, the psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted his iconic “shock experiments”. An “experimenter” instructed each
participant to give an unseen person in an adjacent room electric shocks of increasing severity via a control panel. The
participants were told that the experiment was testing the effect of punishment on learning. They heard screams of pain in
apparent response to their actions, although in reality no one was being hurt.
Milgram was fascinated by how far the participants would follow the inhumane instructions of the experimenter. His results
suggested that many normal people would be prepared to do terrible things if someone in authority told them to.
RESEARCH ETHICS
framework of values within which we
conduct research.
Ethics help researchers identify actions we
consider good and bad.

Explain the principles by which we make

responsible decisions in actual situations.
 Institutional
Review Boards APA Code (1953)
(IRBs)
composed of informed consent
laypeople and confidentiality
researchers, evaluate
deception
research proposals to
make sure that they right to withdraw
follow ethical risk vs. benefit
standards.
“Informed
consent”
A subject or guardian agrees
in writing to the subject’s
participation after relevant
details of the experiment
have been explained.
This description may include
risks and benefits, but does
not extend to deception or Consenting is a process where the researcher clearly
the hypothesis. communicates the risks and benefits of the study, the
voluntary nature of participation in the study, and the
Consent may only be given expectations from the subject if they agree to participate in
by individuals who have the study.
reached the legal age of
consent.
The APA Guidelines
The APA Guidelines

“Assent”
Used to express willingness to participate in research
by persons who are too young to give informed consent
but are old enough to understand the proposed
research in general.

Assent is the agreement of someone not able to give

legal consent to participate in the activity.
The APA Guidelines

Confidentiality
that data are securely
stored and only used for
the purpose explained
to the subject.
Anonymity means that subjects
are not identified by name.
The APA Guidelines

“Confidentiality”
Researchers achieve anonymity by collecting
data without names and assigning code
numbers.
They achieve confidentiality by storing data in
a locked safe and only using the data for the
purposes explained to the participants.
 Deception may be used when it is the best way to obtain information.
Deception may not be used to minimize the participants’ perception of risk or
exaggerate their perception of potential benefits.

“Deception”
The APA Guidelines
 A confederate is an
experimenter’s accomplice.
Use of a confederate is deceptive
because subjects are led to believe Full disclosure means
that the confederate is another explaining the true nature
subject, experimenter, or and purpose of the study
bystander, when he or she is to the subject at the end
actually part of the experimental
manipulation. of their participation or at
the completion of the
entire experiment.
 The Monster Study
The Monster Study was a stuttering experiment
performed on 22 orphan children in Iowa in 1939.

It was conducted by Wendell Johnson, with the help

of his graduate student Mary Tudor.
 “Right to withdraw”
the right of a participant to refuse to
be in the study or discontinue
participation.
Ethical researchers, therefore, cannot
coerce participants to agree to be in
the study or prevent participants from
discontinuing the study.

The APA Guidelines

The APA Guidelines

“Debriefing”
experimenter discloses the true
nature and purpose of the study to
the subject and solicits subjects’
questions at the end of the
experiment.
 “risk vs. benefit”

Studies that place subjects at risk increase the chance of harm

compared with not participating in the study.
Minimal risk studies do not increase the likelihood of injury.
Three principles from Belmont Report (1979)

1. Respect for persons: individuals have

the right of self-determination (basis of
informed consent).

2. Beneficence: minimize harm and

maximize potential benefits (basis
of risk/benefit analysis).

3. Justice: fairness in both the burdens

and benefits of research.
How do psychologists protect the welfare of animal subjects?
Animal rights is the position that sensate species (those that can feel pain and
suffer) have equal value and rights to humans.

Animal welfare is the humane care and treatment of animals.

 Scientific fraud What motivates fraud?
involves falsifying or Competition
fabricating data. by colleagues
for scarce
A researcher’s resources,
graduation, tenure, while a cause
promotion, funding, of fraud, is the
or reputation may third line of
motivate defense.
researchers to
commit fraud.
Plagiarism
misrepresenting someone’s “ideas,
words, or written work” as your own.
Plagiarism is a form of fraud, in
which an individual claims false
credit for another’s ideas, words, or
written work.
Authorship credit should only be given to
those who made a major contribution to the
research or writing.
Researchers should not take credit for the
same research more than once.
The ethical solution is to cite original
publications when republishing data in a
journal article or republishing journal
articles in an edited volume.
Example: Pope, A. (2006). "An Essay on Man." New York: Puffin. (Original work
published in 1734).
 What are the main lines of defense against fraud?

Peer review process Replication, where

filters submitted researchers attempt to
manuscripts so that reproduce the
only 15-20% of findings of others, is
articles the second line of
are printed. defense.
Popularized Experiments
LITTLE ALBERT EXPERIMENT
In John Watson’s famous 1920 experiment on
emotional conditioning, a 9-month-old boy, “Albert B”,
was first exposed to various stimuli, including a rabbit
and a rat, of which he was not afraid. When the
appearance of the animal was accompanied by a loud
bang, Albert quickly began to display fear in response
to the harmless stimulus alone.

Not only was the experiment inherently cruel, but

Albert was not helped to overcome his conditioned
fears.
STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT
In 1974, Zimbardo & his team gathered twenty-four male
students ,who were randomly assigned the role of either
guard or prisoner, and then set up according to their role in a
specifically designed model prison located in the basement
of the psychology building on Stanford’s campus.

It soon became apparent that those who had been given the
role of guard were taking their job very seriously.
They began to enforce harsh measures and subjected their
“prisoners” to various degrees of psychological torture. If
that’s surprising, perhaps it is even more surprising that
many of the prisoners in the experiment simply accepted the
abuses.

The authoritarian measures adopted by the guards became so

extreme that the experiment was abruptly stopped after just
six days.
HARLOW’S MONKEY
EXPERIMENTS
In 1930s, Harlow’s experiments provided empirical
proof that primary attachment bonds are vital to a
developing creature. Contact comfort plays a much
more important role in the mother-child relationship
than sustenance does.

Furthermore, there’s a time limit for when such bonds

need to be forged without causing permanent
emotional, mental, and social issues.
ROBBERS CAVE
To examine how competition between groups affects social
relations, psychologist Muzafer Sherif conducted a series of
studies between 1949 and 1954 at summer camps for boys
in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma.

He assigned boys who were friends with each other to

different groups and then had them compete for scarce
resources. A series of aggressive encounters between the
groups ensued – though the animosity was later overcome by
team-building exercises.

The main ethical problem here was that the boys were
unaware they were taking part in an experiment in which
their worlds were being deliberately manipulated.
AVERSION PROJECT
Between about 1969 and 1987, the South Africa Apartheid
Army conducted a top-secret program to root out and "cure"
homosexuality.

Dr. Aubrey Levin headed the study - known as the Aversion

Project - and tried to convert gay soldiers with drugs,
hormone treatment, sex changes, aversion shock therapy, and
other psychologically damaging methods.

Patients, whom the doctor also referred to as "deviants," were

sent to Ward 22, a unit in the Voortrekkerhoogte military
hospital where Levin conducted his experiments.
BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT
Between 1961 and 1963, Dr. Albert Bandura sought to see
if children mimic adult violence and exposed children to
three scenarios.

The first was adults showing aggressive behavior towards a

Bobo doll. The second was a passive adult playing with the
Bobo doll. The third formed a control group.

The result showed that children exposed to the adults

acting aggressively toward the doll were more likely to
abuse the doll themselves.

The study was controversial for causing aggression in

children.