Ethics in Psychological Research

ETHICS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH PREVIEW & CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

This second chapter will introduce you to the most recent version, two thousand two, of the ethics code formulated by the American Psychological Association. The code directs psychological scientists in the planning, execution, and reporting of their research, and it includes guidelines for psychological research that tests both human participants and animals. Ethical issues are important to review early in this textbook because such issues must be addressed at all stages of the research process. When you finish this chapter, you should be able to:

Describe the origins and evolution of the APA ethics code.

Articulate the code's five general principles, especially as they apply to research in psychology.

Describe the role of the Institutional Review Board in the research process and what needs to be done by the researcher to achieve IRB approval of research.

Explain when research proposals are exempt from IRB review, eligible for expedited review, or in need of a full formal review.

Explain why the decision-making processes of IRBs have occasionally been controversial. Identify the essential features of a researcher's ethical responsibility when completing psychological research using adult human participants.

Describe historical examples of research that raised serious ethical questions.

Identify the ethical principles involved when completing research with children and those from special populations, for example, prisoners and nursing home residents.

Describe how the ethics code applies to research that involves using the Internet. Describe the arguments for and against the use of animals in psychological research. Identify the essential features of a researcher's ethical responsibility when completing psychological research using animal subjects.

Identify the varieties of scientific dishonesty, how it can be detected, and understand some of the reasons why misconduct sometimes occurs in science.

A system of ethics is a set of "standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession." As members of the profession of psychology, researchers are obligated to follow the code of ethics established by the APA. When conducting research in psychology, our ethical obligations encompass several areas. Research psychologists must, a, treat human research participants with respect and in a way that maintains their rights and dignity, b, care for the welfare of animals when they are the subjects of research, and c, be scrupulously honest in the treatment of data. This chapter will examine each of these broad topics.

Before we describe the APA code of ethics, you should read Box two point one, which describes one of psychology's best-known studies and two lesser-known experiments. The Little Albert experiment is often depicted as a pioneering investigation of how children develop fears, but it also serves well as a lesson in dubious ethical practice. Also, in the name of psychological science, other infants have been subjected to repeated pinpricks in a study on adaptation to pain and have spent up to fourteen months in relative isolation.

Box two point one Classic Studies-Infants at Risk

In this chapter, you will learn about an ethics code that is elaborate and finely tuned. In fact, you might think the code is unnecessarily complex and the good judgment of psychological researchers would surely prevent research participants from coming to serious harm. After you read about the following three studies, which occurred before the code existed, it should be clear why one was needed.

One of psychology's most frequently cited studies has come to be known as the Little Albert study. The authors were the famous behaviorist John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, a graduate student who eventually became Watson's second wife. The study tested just one child, an eleven-month-old boy referred to as Albert B. The purpose of the study was to see if Albert could be conditioned to be afraid. Despite serious methodological weaknesses and failed replication attempts, the study has become a "classic" in psychology, routinely appearing in general psychology textbooks in the chapter on conditioning.

In prior research, Watson had determined that most infants were naturally afraid of loud noises and loss of support, for example, falling. Watson and Rayner decided to use loud noise, produced when Watson struck a steel bar with a hammer just behind the infant's head. To see if the fear could be attached to a neutral stimulus, a white rat, the conditioning procedure was to pair the loud noise with the rat. When Albert reached out to touch the rat, "the bar was struck immediately behind his head." His response? "The infant jumped violently and fell forward, burying his face in the mattress." After several trials, the loud noise was no longer needed; Albert was now afraid of the rat. Because of generalization to similar stimuli, he was also fearful when shown a rabbit. Watson and Rayner made no attempt to remove the fear, although they made several suggestions for doing so.

It is difficult to hold Watson and Rayner responsible for ethical guidelines that were published several decades after they completed their study. Historical events must be evaluated in the context of their own times. They acknowledged, however, that "a certain responsibility attaches to such a procedure." They decided to proceed because Albert seemed to be a strong, healthy child. Watson also justified the study by arguing that because Albert would learn such fears in real life anyway, he might as well learn them in a way that would advance behavioral science.

Watson and Rayner haven't been the only psychologists who used questionable judgment while studying infants. Two other examples are studies by Myrtle McGraw and by Wayne Dennis, both published in nineteen forty-one. McGraw was interested in nervous system maturation, a legitimate topic of study. Her method was to apply repeated "pin pricks" to the cheeks, abdomens, arms, and legs of seventy-five children "at repeated intervals from birth to four years." The pin pricks did not penetrate the skin, but they certainly caused distress, as is clear from McGraw's descriptions of the reactions to the stimulus. For example, she wrote that the "most characteristic response consists of diffuse bodily movements accompanied by crying, and possibly a local reflex withdrawal of the stimulated member." Eventually, just the mere sight of McGraw heading their way with a pin was enough to stress the children: "With advancing development, it will be observed that perception of the pin or of the approaching arm of the adult provokes fussing, crying, or withdrawal reactions on the part of this child."

Dennis was interested in studying how early development would be affected by reducing environmental and social stimulation. From a local hospital, Dennis and his wife were able to "obtain" a pair of newborn female twins "because the mother was unable to provide for them." The Dennises offered the impoverished mother "temporary care of the twins in return for the privilege of studying them." The twins spent fourteen months in the Dennis household, kept most of the time in a nursery room that afforded minimal views of the outside (sky and the top of a tree); the room contained little furniture and no toys. Dennis and his wife interacted with them only during feeding, bathing, and diaper changing, and "carefully refrained from rewarding or punishing the subjects for any action." Dennis reported delays in motor development for the girls but claimed no serious adverse effects resulted from the environmental deprivation. He concluded that during the first year, social interactions and environmental stimulation had minimal effect on children. He made little of the fact that the twins were slow in language development, an outcome that wouldn't surprise modern developmental psychologists. Today, research psychologists sometimes use animals in procedures that would not be considered appropriate for humans, and raising them briefly in isolation is an example. In nineteen forty-one, however, Dennis had no misgivings about subjecting infants to an impoverished environment.

The Watson, McGraw, and Dennis studies were not completed by callous and unconcerned researchers but rather by people who believed they were advancing their science. But they were operating in the absence of a code of ethical conduct that might have given them pause. These studies make the need for an ethics code clear.