Ethics

• 2 areas of ethical implications

  • effects of research on participants
  • Effects of research on society as a whole
• double obligation dilemma

  psychologists have an obligation to 2 sets of people

  • participants
  • society
• example of socially sensitive research

  Cyril Burt published results from twin studies to show that intelligence in inherited and consistently found a correlation of 0.7

  sunday times reporter looked for 2 of his research assistants but couldn’t find them, leading to the belief that his data was made up
• Seiber & Stanley - 4 aspects of research that raise ethical implications

  1. the research question
  2. the methodology
  3. the institutional context (funding)
  4. interpretation & application of findings
• why did Seiber & Stanley propose 6 further guidelines?

  the original guidelines don’t consider wider implications than the individual participant
• 6 further guidelines for ethics in socially sensitive research

  • sound & valid methodology
  • justice & equitable treatment
  • scientific freedom shouldn‘t get to the point of harming participants
  • ownership of data
  • values of social scientists
  • risk benefit analysis
• benefits of psychological research

  • improvement of existing knowledge
  • practical gains such as improved treatment for illnesses
• arguments against discontinuing socially sensitive research

  Milgram - if we exclused studies that created conflict we would never get an accurate representation of human experience

  Seiber & Stanley - if we refused to investigate sensitive issues we would only ever study unimportant things
• safeguards for socially sensitive research

  • guidelines
  • university ethics committees
  • policies
• examples of ethical issues in psychology

  Milgram - participants were not protected from harm and experienced significant distress as a result

  Bowlby’s theory was used to suggest women should only stay at home to look after children