A03

• What are the strengths of socially sensitive research?

  1. Been used to shape social policy
• What are the limitations of socially sensitive research?

  1. Inadequacy of current ethical guidelines
  2. May disadvantage marginalised groups
  3. Social control
• Strength = been used to shape social policy

  • Not carrying out socially sensitive research would leave psychologists with nothing to examine other than unimportant issues
  • Findings of socially sensitive research have been used by the government and other institutions to shape social policy
  • E.g. Research into the unreliability of eyewitness testimony has reduced the risk of miscarriages of justice within the legal system, suggesting that socially sensitive research may play a valuable role in society
  • Bowlby - legal norm that mothers are granted custody
• Limitation = inadequacy of current ethical guidelines

  • Research may still inflict harm on a group of people in society
  • Psychologists have developed strict ethical guidelines that aim to protect the immediate needs of research participants, but they may not deal with all the possible ways in which research may inflict harm on a group of people or section of society
  • E.g. currently ethical guidelines don’t ask researchers to consider how their research might be used by others
  • Research into intelligence in the 1920s and 30s
• Limitation = may disadvantage marginalised groups

  • Our understanding of human behaviour has been lessened by our misrepresentation of people with disabilities, the elderly, the disadvantaged and members of minority cultures
  • This leads to these groups missing out on any of the potential benefits of research
  • The misrepresentation of such groups in psychological research means our understanding of human behaviour has been restricted
• Limitation = social control

  • Research into intelligence by the psychological community in the 1920s and 30s led to a large number of US states enacting legislation that led to the compulsory sterilisation of many citizens (low intelligence, drug or alcohol addicts, mentally ill) on the grounds that they were ‘feeble-minded’ and a drain on society
  • Psychological research had supported this rationale, arguing that such feeble-minded people were ‘unfit’ to breed