Ch. 4 Ethical Guidelines for Psychology Research

Ch. 4 Ethical Guidelines for Psychology Research         Be able to describe what was unethical about famous experiments such as the Tuskegee Study, Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments, Zimbardo’s prison study, or Watson’s work on Little Albert. What kind of information needs to be in a debriefing or an informed consent form? What three basic principles were proposed in the Belmont Report? (And what do they mean?) What two ethical principles did the APA add to the Belmont Report? o You don’t need to know all ten ethical standards When is it/is it not appropriate to use deception? If you do use deception, what steps must you take to ensure participants’ rights are being protected? What is the responsibility of the IRB? What kinds of people are found on an IRB? When is the IACUC used instead of the IRB? What “Three R’s” does the IACUC use as its standards for ethical practice? What are examples of research misconduct and why is it considered unethical? Historical Examples Little Albert: A study of Fear  Study of Classical Conditioning performed by John B. Watson  How do we learn fear? How specific are the fears we learn? o Experiment:  Can an infant be trained to fear something it is not afraid of through association? Do these fears generalize beyond the trained stimulus?  Why wasn’t it ethical? o No clear consent was obtained, no clear informed consent was obtained (from Albert’s mom) o No attempt made to decondition response o Short and long-term consequences not considered The Tuskegee Syphilis Study Illustrates Three Major Ethics Violations 1930-1972  Background: o Up to 35% of African-American men living in the South had syphilis o Only known treatment was very toxic o Access to health care was very limited  Experiment: o 400 participants were told they were in a treatment study (for “bad blood”) o Real purpose was to study progression of untreated disease, no meaningful treatment ever given o Dangerous and painful procedures were misrepresented as treatment  Issue: o Participants were never told that they had syphilis  Many passed the disease to their wives, who then passed it to their children o Penicillin was found to be effective against syphilis in the 1940’s  Participants never offered this treatment  Researchers discouraged participants from seeking other treatment  Study continued for over 40 years until reported by press in 1972, outrage ensued o By 1972:  28 – died of syphilis  100 – died of related complications  40 – wives infected  19 – children born with congenital syphilis  Three Big ethical issues: 1. Treated disrespectfully 2. Harmed 3. Targeted a disadvantage social group Nazi Medical Experiments (1942 - 1945)  Thousands of gruesome “medical experiments” conducted on concentration camp prisoners  Nuremberg Trials  The Nuremberg Code (1947) o Also inspired the famous Milgram Obedience to Authority experiments  Adolph Eichmann Trial o “We were just following orders” Milgram’s Obedience Studies  Experiment: o Participants:  Subject is the “teacher”  Other participant (confederate) is the “learner” o Procedure:  Subject must try to “teach” learner, and punish him for mistakes with supposed increasingly intense electric shocks  As shocks increase in intensity, learner protests, cries in pain, asks to stop, finally stops responding altogether  Subject is told by experimenter they must continue  Ethical Issues: o Deception o Psychological harm  Obedience today… o A modern version of the study was done on the Discovery Channel’s show, “Curosity”  Real world examples o My Lai Massacre o Jonestown o Heaven’s Gate Core Ethical Principles People were Providing Consent, But Not Informed Consent  Special article on Ethics in Clinical Research by Henry K. Beecher (1966) o Discussed lack of informed consent o Situations where people were unable to provide consent (Ex: prisoners) o Deception and misleading consent forms The Belmont Report: Principles and Applications  At request of Congress, ethicists, physicians, scientists, philosophers, and citizens gathered to discuss basic ethical principles that should be applied to human participants (1976)  Outlines three main principles for guiding ethical decision making: 1. Respect for person 2. Beneficence 3. Justice  The Principle of Respect for Persons o Two provisions: 1. Individuals participating in research should be treated as autonomous agents  They should be free to make up their own minds about whether they wish to participate in a research study  Applying this principle means that every participant is entitles to the precaution of informed consent - Each person learns about the research project, knows the risks and benefits, and decides whether to participate  No coercion - Coercion occurs when researchers explicitly or implicitly suggest that those who do not participate will suffer a negative consequence 2. Some people have less autonomy, so they are entitled to special protection when it comes to informed consent  Some groups entitled to special protections - Children - Those with intellectual deficits - Prisoners  Prisoners are especially susceptible to coercion – because they may perceive requests to participate in research as demands – rather than as invitations  The Principle of Beneficence o Researchers must take precautions to protect researchers participants from harm and to ensure their well-being o Need to assess the risks and benefits of the research they plan to conduct o Protect participants from harm and ensure their well-being  Includes not withholding treatment o Must consider the risks and benefits to the individual and to the greater community  The Principle of Justice o Calls for a fair balance between the kinds of people who participate in research and the kinds of people who benefit from it o Fair balance between those who participate and those who benefit  Ex: Tuskeegee research didn’t have an appropriate balance of risk for participants/others Guidelines for Psychologists: The APA Ethical Principles APA Five Main Principles: 1. Beneficence and nonmaleficence 2. Justice 3. Respect for people’s rights and dignity 4. Fidelity and responsibility  Ex. A clinical psychologist who teaches in a university may not serve as a therapist to one of his or her classroom students, and psychologists must avoid sexual relationships with other students or clients 5. Integrity  Ex. Professors are obligated to teach you accurately, and therapists are required to stay up-to-date on the empirical evidence for therapeutic techniques Ten Specific Ethical Standards  Enforceable o Can lose professional licensure or have other disciplinary action for violation  Standard 8 is most important for Psychological Research specifically 1. IRB 2. Informed consent 3. Deception 4. Debriefing 5. Animal research 6. Data fabrication 7. Plagiarism  Institutional Review Board: o IRB:  Campus review panel for the use of human participants in research projects.  Required for all institutions that receive federal funding o Primary Jobs:  Ensure research occurring at an institution adheres to ethical guidelines  Ensure that the experimenter treats research participants according to the established ethical guidelines. o At FSU  Human Subjects Committee o Who is in it:  Composed of a cross-section of individuals; at least 5 members.  Both a scientist and a non-scientist  Both someone employed by the institution and someone who isn’t  If experiment will utilize a vulnerable population, someone knowledgeable about that population o IRB Criteria:  Minimization of Risks to Participants  Reasonable Risks in Relation to Benefits  Equitable Selection (see inquiring minds)  Informed Consent  Documentation of Informed Consent  Data Monitoring  Privacy and Confidentiality o IRB regulates human subjects only?  No animals  Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) o Similar to the IRB, but for studies involving non-human animal testing  Required by federal law o Guided by the “Three R’s”  Replacement  With other non-animal methods if possible  Refinement  Of experiments to minimize animal distress  Reduction  Of # of animals used by designing good experiments  Back to humans – What about Deception? o Question:  Should we be able to lie to our participants?  Deception is common in research, but is it ethical? - What about INFORMED consent? o A (Non-Milgram) Example of deception  A study of Social Conformity (Asch, 1956) o APA Guidelines for Deception 1. Use it only when the benefits are justified  Data can be collected in no other way  Value warrants deception (IRB will help here) 2. Participants are warned of harm  You can’t deceive participants about the risk of study 3. Immediate debriefing  Real purpose of the study  Why deception was necessary