PSYC 2017-CHAPTER 4

• Lesson objectives


  • Define the three ethical principles of the Belmont report and the five ethical principles of the American Psychological Association (APA)
  • Describe the procedures in place to protect human and animal rights in research
  • Articulate ways in which ethical decisions requires balancing priorities, such as research risks vs. societal benefits
• Two historical examples


  • The Tuskegee Syphilis Study illustrates three major ethics violations
  • The Milgram obedience studies illustrate a difficult ethical balance
• Tuskegee Syphilis Study

  • Researchers from the Pubic Health Services started a longitudinal study of the progression of syphilis by following infected and uninfected Black men in the south
  • Participants in the study were not told about their conditions
  • Even when treatments were made available in 1943, participants were not given access to them
• Tuskegee Syphilis Study - Unethical Choices


  • The participants were not treated respectfully
  • The participants were harmed
  • The participants were a targeted, disadvantaged social group
• Milgram Study


  • Participants in this experiment were told that they were the 'teacher', and a participant on the other room was a 'learner'
  • The participants are also told to punish the learner by administering shocks when the learner made a mistake
• Milgram Study - Ethical questions


  • Debriefing
  • Balancing risk to participants with benefit to society
• Core Ethical Principles- The Belmont Report (1979)


  • Principle of respect for persons
  • Principle of beneficence
  • Principle of justice
• Principle of respect for persons


  • Informed consent
  • Groups with limited autonomy (children, prisoners, people with disabilities) are entitled to special protection
• Principle of beneficence


  • Assess potential harm to participants and potential benefits to society
  • Protect participant privacy/confidentiality
• Principle of justice


  Who bears the burden of research participation?
• APA Ethical Principles (2002)


  • Fidelity and Responsibility – establish relationships of trust
  • Integrity – strive to be accurate and truthful
• APA Ethical Standards for Research (Standard 8)


  • Institutional review boards (Standard 8.01)
  • Informed consent (Standard 8.02)
  • Deception (Standard 8.07)
  • Debriefing (Standard 8.08)
  • Research misconduct
  • Data fabrication (Standard 8.10) and data falsification
  • Plagiarism (Standard 8.11)
  • Animal research (Standard 8.09)
• Ethical decision making


  • Ethical decision making requires a balance of priorities, trade-offs, and limits in resources
  • We need to weigh the potential harm to human or animal participants against what the knowledge gained from the research will contribute to society
• Institutional Review Board (IRB)


  • IRB is a committee responsible for interpreting ethical principles and ensuring that research using human participants is conducted ethically
  • IRBs are usually housed within universities and other research institutions (research hospitals)
  • IRB is composed of members from different backgrounds, many of whom are researchers themselves
  • IRB's job is to review proposal for research projects and determine the degree it conforms with ethical standards
  • IRB procedures vary across institutions
• Informed consent


  • Researcher's obligation to explain the study to potential participants in every language and provide participants with a chance to decide whether or not they want to participate
  • Written consent may not be needed for completely anonymous questionnaires
  • The format of informed consent vary across institutions
  • Consent may not be required if: Study involves naturalistic observation of participants in low-risk public settings, In some cases, self-report of non-intrusive questions may also be waived of consent
• Animal Research


  • Replacement – researcher should find alternatives to animals, whenever possible (e.g., computer simulations)
  • Refinement – researcher must modify procedures to minimize animal distress
  • Reduction – researcher must adopt designs that require the fewest animal subjects possible (e.g., within-subject design)
• Research Misconduct


  • Plagiarism
  • Representing ideas or words of others as one's own
  • More common, people in academic commit plagiarism unintentionally because of poor paraphrasing skills and poor citations (i.e., being lazy)
  • Avoid plagiarism: Writers must cite direct quotations using quotation marks, Paraphrasing must be cited with author name and year, Paraphrasing that is too close to original is plagiarism, even if its cited
• Research Ethics at LSU