Ethical Considerations of Research

Introduction

Thus far we have learned about the evolution of psychology as a science, as well as the various approaches to psychology. This section will focus on the importance of honoring ethical research as well as the scientific process. Historically, ethical experiments, such as Milgram’s obedience experience, involved deceiving the subjects as well as potentially harming them. This, as well as other controversial experiments, played an important role in developing ethical and legal guidelines when conducting experiments. This section will explore some of the guidelines, such as informed consent, obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, as well as only using voluntary subjects.  These are essential safeguards to ensure that research is conducted in an ethical manner and does not pose a risk or harm to any of the participants.

Additionally, this section will continue to explore ethical conduct when using animals in research. Similar to conducting research with people, ethical and legal guidelines have been developed for conducting research with animals. To date, experiments with cats and dogs have decreased with the primary research being conducted on rats and mice.  Regardless of the type of animal being used in research, ethical guidelines must be implemented to reduce the risk of harm.

Conducting Ethical Research

One of the questions that all scientists must address concerns the ethics of their research (Fisher, 2012). Physicists are concerned about the potentially harmful outcomes of their experiments with nuclear materials. Biologists worry about the potential outcomes of creating genetically engineered human babies. Medical researchers agonize over the ethics of withholding potentially beneficial drugs from control groups in clinical trials. Likewise, psychologists are continually considering the ethics of their research.

Research in psychology may cause some stress, harm, or inconvenience for the people who participate in that research. For instance, researchers may require introductory psychology students to participate in research projects and then deceive these students, at least temporarily, about the nature of the research. Psychologists may induce stress, anxiety, or negative moods in their participants, expose them to weak electrical shocks, or convince them to behave in ways that violate their moral standards. Researchers may sometimes use animals in their research, potentially harming them in the process.

Decisions about whether research is ethical or not are made using established ethical codes developed by scientific organizations, such as the American Psychological Association and federal governments. In the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services provides the guidelines for ethical standards in research. Some research, such as the research conducted by the Nazis on prisoners during World War II (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2012), is perceived as immoral by almost everyone. Other procedures, such as the use of animals in research testing the effectiveness of drugs, are more controversial.

Scientific research has provided information that has improved the lives of many people. Therefore, it is unreasonable to argue that because scientific research has costs, no research should be conducted. This argument fails to consider the fact that there are significant costs to not doing research and that these costs may be greater than the potential costs of conducting the research (Rosenthal, 1994). In each case, before beginning to conduct the research, scientists have attempted to determine the potential risks and benefits of the research and have come to the conclusion that the potential benefits of conducting the research outweigh the potential costs to the research participants.

Fisher, C. B. (2012). Decoding the ethics code: A practical guide for psychologists (updated 2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rosenthal, R. (1994). Science and ethics in conducting, analyzing, and reporting psychological research. Psychological Science, 5, 127–134.
Stangor, C. (2011). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed.). Mountain View, CA: Cengage.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005168

Characteristics of an Ethical Research Project

Below is a list of characteristics of an ethical research project using human participants:

• Trust and positive rapport are created between the researcher and the participant.
• The rights of both the experimenter and participant are considered, and the relationship between them is mutually beneficial.
• The experimenter treats the participant with concern and respect and attempts to make the research experience a pleasant and informative one.
• Before the research begins, the participant is given all information relevant to his or her decision to participate, including any possibilities of physical danger or psychological stress.
• The participant is given a chance to have questions about the procedure answered, thus guaranteeing his or her free choice about participating.
• After the experiment is over, any deception that has been used is made public, and the necessity for it is explained.
• The experimenter carefully debriefs the participant, explaining the underlying research hypothesis and the purpose of the experimental procedure in detail and answering questions.
• The experimenter provides information about how he or she can be contacted and offers to provide information about the results of the research if the participant is interested in receiving it.

This list presents some of the most important factors that psychologists take into consideration when designing their research. The most direct ethical concern of the scientist is to prevent harm to the research participants. One example is the well-known research of Stanley Milgram (1974) investigating obedience to authority. In these studies, participants were induced by an experimenter to administer electric shocks to another person so that Milgram could study the extent to which they would obey the demands of an authority figure. Most participants evidenced high levels of stress resulting from the psychological conflict they experienced between engaging in aggressive and dangerous behavior and following the instructions of the experimenter. Studies such as those by Milgram are no longer conducted because the scientific community is now much more sensitized to the potential of such procedures to create emotional discomfort or harm.

“Milgram Experiment.” Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/axelsrose/4471928014. Licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0.

Another goal of ethical research is to guarantee that participants have free choice regarding whether they wish to participate in research. Students in psychology classes may be allowed, or even required, to participate in research, but they are also always given an option to choose a different study to be in, or to perform other activities instead. And once an experiment begins, the research participant is always free to leave the experiment, without accruing any penalty. Concerns with free choice also occur in institutional settings, such as in schools, hospitals, corporations, and prisons, when individuals are required by the institutions to take certain tests, or when employees are told or asked by their supervisors to participate in research.

Researchers must also protect the privacy of the research participants. In some cases, data can be kept anonymous by not having the respondents put any identifying information on their questionnaires. In other cases, the data cannot be anonymous because the researcher needs to keep track of which respondent contributed the data. In this case, one technique is to have each participant use a unique code number to identify his or her data, such as the last four digits of the student ID number. In this way the researcher can keep track of which person completed which questionnaire, but no one will be able to connect the data with the individual who contributed them.

Perhaps the most widespread ethical concern to the participants in behavioral research is the extent to which researchers employ deception. Deception occurs whenever research participants are not completely and fully informed about the nature of the research project before participating in it. Deception may occur in an active way, such as when the researcher tells the participants that he or she is studying learning when in fact the experiment really concerns obedience to authority. In other cases, the deception is more passive, such as when participants are not told about the hypothesis being studied or the potential use of the data being collected.

Some researchers have argued that no deception should ever be used in any research (Baumrind, 1985). They argue that participants should always be told the complete truth about the nature of the research they are in, and that when participants are deceived, there will be negative consequences, such as the possibility that participants may arrive at other studies already expecting to be deceived. Other psychologists defend the use of deception on the grounds that it is needed to get participants to act naturally and to enable the study of psychological phenomena that might not otherwise get investigated. They argue that it would be impossible to study topics such as altruism, aggression, obedience, and stereotyping without using deception because if participants were informed ahead of time what the study involved, this knowledge would certainly change their behavior. The codes of ethics of the American Psychological Association and other organizations allow researchers to use deception, but these codes also require them to explicitly consider how their research might be conducted without the use of deception.

Baumrind, D. (1985). Research using intentional deception: Ethical issues revisited. American Psychologist, 40, 165–174.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York, NY: Harper and Row.
Stangor, C. (2011). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed.). Mountain View, CA: Cengage.

Ensuring That Research Is Ethical

Making decisions about the ethics of research involves weighing the costs and benefits of conducting versus not conducting a given research project. The costs involve potential harm to the research participants and to the field, whereas the benefits include the potential for advancing knowledge about human behavior and offering various advantages. Most generally, the ethics of a given research project are determined through a cost-benefit analysis, in which the costs are compared to the benefits. If the potential costs of the research appear to outweigh any potential benefits that might come from it, then the research should not proceed.

Arriving at a cost-benefit ratio is not simple. For one thing, there is no way to know ahead of time what the effects of a given procedure will be on every person or animal who participates or what benefit to society the research is likely to produce. In addition, what is ethical is defined by the current state of thinking within society, and thus perceived costs and benefits change over time. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations require that all universities receiving funds from the department set up an Institutional Review Board (IRB) to determine whether proposed research meets department regulations.

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a committee of at least five members whose goal is to determine the cost-benefit ratio of research conducted within an institution. The IRB approves the procedures of all the research conducted at the institution before the research can begin. The board may suggest modifications to the procedures, or (in rare cases) it may inform the scientist that the research violates Department of Health and Human Services guidelines and thus cannot be conducted at all.

Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Konference_phone_meeting.jpg. Licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

One important tool for ensuring that research is ethical is the use of informed consent. Informed consent, conducted before a participant begins a research session, is designed to explain the research procedures and inform the participant of his or her rights during the investigation. The informed consent explains as much as possible about the true nature of the study, particularly everything that might be expected to influence willingness to participate, but it may in some cases withhold some information that allows the study to work.

Because participating in research has the potential for producing long-term changes in the research participants, all participants should be fully debriefed immediately after their participation. The debriefing is a procedure designed to fully explain the purposes and procedures of the research and remove any harmful aftereffects of participation. After the debriefing by the experimenter, the research participant can ask whatever questions he or she might have about the research.

Stangor, C. (2011). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed.). Mountain View, CA: Cengage.
Stangor, C. (2017). Introduction to psychology. Boston, MA: Flatworld.

Research with Animals

Because animals make up an important part of the natural world, and because some research cannot be conducted using humans, animals are also participants in psychological research. Most psychological research using animals is now conducted with rats and mice, while the use of other animals, including cats and dogs, is rapidly declining (Thomas & Blackman, 1992). As with ethical decisions involving human participants, a set of basic principles has been developed that helps researchers make informed decisions about animal research; a summary is shown below. Research studies involving animals must be approved by a federally mandated committee called the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

The following are some of the most important ethical principles from the American Psychological Association’s guidelines on research with animals.

• Psychologists acquire, care for, use, and dispose of animals in compliance with current federal, state, and local laws and regulations, and with professional standards.
• Psychologists trained in research methods and experienced in the care of laboratory animals supervise all procedures involving animals and are responsible for ensuring appropriate consideration of their comfort, health, and humane treatment.
• Psychologists ensure that all individuals under their supervision who are using animals have received instruction in research methods and in the care, maintenance, and handling of the species being used, to the extent appropriate to their role.
• Psychologists make reasonable efforts to minimize the discomfort, infection, illness, and pain of animal subjects.
• Psychologists use a procedure subjecting animals to pain, stress, or privation only when an alternative procedure is unavailable and the goal is justified by its prospective scientific, educational, or applied value.
• Psychologists perform surgical procedures under appropriate anesthesia and follow techniques to avoid infection and minimize pain during and after surgery.
• When it is appropriate that an animal’s life be terminated, psychologists proceed rapidly, with an effort to minimize pain and in accordance with accepted procedures (American Psychological Association, 2002).

Because the use of animals in research involves a personal value, people naturally disagree about this practice. Although many people accept the value of animal research (Plous, 1996), a minority of people, including animal-rights activists, believe that it is ethically wrong to conduct research on animals. This argument is based on the assumption that, because animals are living creatures just as humans are, no harm should ever be done to them.

Stangor, C. (2017). Introduction to psychology. Boston, MA: Flatworld.

Most scientists; however, reject this view. They argue that such beliefs ignore the potential benefits that have and continue to come from research with animals. For instance, drugs that can reduce the incidence of cancer or AIDS may first be tested on animals, and surgery that can save human lives may first be practiced on animals. Research on animals has also led to a better understanding of the physiological causes of depression, phobias, and stress, among other illnesses. In contrast to animal-rights activists, then, scientists believe that because there are many benefits that accrue from animal research, such research can and should continue as long as the humane treatment of the animals used in the research is guaranteed.

American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical principles of psychologists. American Psychologist, 57, 1060–1073
Plous, S. (1996). Attitudes toward the use of animals in psychological research and education. Psychological Science, 7, 352–358.
Stangor, C. (2011). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed.). Mountain View, CA: Cengage.
Thomas, G., & Blackman, D. (1992). The future of animal studies in psychology. American Psychologist, 47, 1678.

Conducting Ethical Research-Video

Summary

Decisions about whether psychological research using human and animals is ethical are made using established ethical codes developed by scientific organizations and on the basis of judgments made by the local Institutional Review Board. These decisions are made through a cost-benefit analysis, in which the costs are compared to the benefits. If the potential costs of the research appear to outweigh any potential benefits that might come from it, then the research should not proceed.

Another important factor to consider is obtaining informed consent. This helps educate the participants of their rights as well as information about the nature of the study. Obtaining permissions such as IRB approval and informed consent is a requirement before conducting any research or experiment. In addition, it is essential that all participants have the opportunity to debrief immediately following the study.  Debriefing is used to fully explain everything about the study, such as the purpose and procedures, as well as removing any possible harmful after-effects from participating in the study.

Ethical and legal practice when conducting research does not only apply to humans. There are some experiments where humans cannot be used as participants so animals are used instead. Research with animals has specific ethical and legal guidelines to ensure that current federal, state and local laws and regulations, as well as professional standards are abided by during the research. Due to the personal value of animal research, there are mixed feelings and beliefs on the topic. Scientists assert that research on animals may lead to a better understanding of mental and medical illnesses.

Stangor, C. (2017). Introduction to psychology. Boston, MA: Flatworld.