Ethics

• Socially sensitive research with ethical implications

  • Goddard (1917) research finding IQ to be fully genetic, leading to eugenic procedures in the 1920s where the 'feeble minded' were sterilised
• Wider ethical implications of research are hard to predict: researchers can control the methods they use and how they treat participants, but have less influence on how findings are presented in the media, how their work impacts public policy and how it affects perception of groups in society
• Researchers shouldn't avoid socially sensitive research - the importance of such research means psychologists have a social responsibility to carry it out
• Sieber and Stanley - concerns for socially sensitive research

  some studies may give scientific status to prejudice and discrimination

  public policy - findings may be adopted by government for political ends or shape public policy

  validity issues - some past findings presented as objective turned out to be fraudulent
• Socially sensitive research


  Studies in which there are potential consequences or implications, either directly for the participants in the research or for the class of individuals represented by the research
• Major BPS ethical guidelines

  • Respect
  • Competence
  • Responsibility
  • Integrity
• Potential ethical issues from breaching BPS guidelines

  • Privacy
  • Confidentiality
  • Valid methodology
  • Deception
  • Informed consent
  • Equitable treatment
  • Scientific freedom
  • Ownership of data
  • Values
  • Risk/benefit ratio
• Socially sensitive research


  • Bowlby's monotropic attachment theory
  • Burt's research into intelligence
• Bowlby's monotropic attachment theory


  • Bowlby was an advisor to the World Health Organisation in the 1950s
  • Bowlby's theory that the critical period for attachment formation with the primary caregiver was the first 2 years of life
  • This led to Britain being one of the only countries in the EU not offering free childcare for children under the age of 5
• Burt's research into intelligence


  • Burt (1955) fraudulently published research demonstrating that the heritability coefficient for intelligence was 0.77
  • Burt's work played a significant part in the development of the 11+ examinations
  • Despite Burt's work being proven as false and fraudulent, the 11+ exams still exist to this day, as well as the idea that children can be organised according to their 'natural intelligence' from an early age
• Consequences of socially sensitive research


  • Uses/public policy (e.g. Burt's influence on the 11+ exams)
  • The validity of research (e.g. Burt's work being proven as false)
  • The implications of the research (on the way in which individuals or groups of people view themselves and the way in which they're viewed by society)
• Socially sensitive research has historically been used as 'scientific justification' for discriminatory practices


  For example, during the 1920s and 1930s, some states in the USA issues voluntary sterilization programmes for citizens who were deemed as 'unfit to breed'
• William Shockley's Voluntary Sterilisation Bonus Plan

  Encouraged low-IQ individuals to undergo sterilization based upon his fraudulent and incorrect research
• Socially sensitive research can be and has been used for malicious and unjust ends
• Psychologists should take responsibility for the presentation of findings to avoid potential misuse of research
• Vance Packard found that when pictures of Coca Cola and popcorn were projected onto cinema screens for split seconds, so that audience members could not see it, their sales increased significantly
• Packard had completely made up his results
• Although the implications in this case were not serious, such an example shows the power of socially sensitive research and how it can be misused
• Cost-benefit analysis


  When deciding whether certain research projects should be allowed to continue, ethics committees undergo a cost-benefit analysis, where the benefit of the research (such as contribution to the existing field of knowledge) is compared to the costs of breaching ethical guidelines
• Some ethical implications of socially sensitive research may be particularly difficult to predict, such as the impact of such research on legislation and the way in which certain groups of people are perceived by the public