Download Research Ethics in Psychology: Principles, Guidelines, and Ethical Standards and more Lecture notes Research Methods in Psychology in PDF only on Docsity!
Chapter 3: Conducting Ethical
3.1 The Importance of Research Ethics ● Jeniffer Perry and Nancy Dress (2012) note that “engaging in research of any kind is a privilege that carries with it weighty ethical responsibilities and opportunities” ● Ethics: represent a system of moral principles and a standard of safety for participants ○ Ethics codes promote such respect and ensure a standard of safety for par ● There are ethics codes to govern how psychologists conduct research with humans and nonhuman animals (APA: American Psychological Association, Canadian Psychological Association) ● Progress in psychological science depends on people’s willingness to be studied. It depends on the public’s and government’s acceptance of the value and appropriateness of human and nonhuman animal research ● Research ethics are intertwined with methodological issues ○ Affect the validity of scientific findings ○ People whose participation has been blatantly or subtly coerced may be more likely to distort their responses ○ Safeguarding confidentiality → increases participants willingness to respond truthfully ● Ethical concerns limit the types of studies the researchers can conduct ○ Ex. it would be unethical to experimentally raise children in abusive, neglectful environments to determine whether it impairs their cognitive, emotional and social development ● To maximise the validity of research findings. In certain situations, ethics codes allow researchers to deceive participants about key aspects of a study
Codes of Research Ethics ● Hippocratic Code - one of the most famous professional ethics codes in history ● Nuremberg Code: a set of ethical principles essential for a medical experiment to be “permissible.” ○ Spirit of the Nuremberg Code principles also apply to behavioural research ■ People’s consent to participate in a study must always be voluntary, and they should be free to withdraw from the study at any time. ■ Prior to giving consent, people should be informed about the study’s purpose and the potential risks to their personal welfare. ■ All unnecessary risks to participants should be avoided. ■ The study should yield results whose benefit to society outweighs any potential risks to participants. ■ Only qualified scientists should conduct the research. ○ Influenced the content of subsequent research ethics codes like the Belmont Report
The Belmont Report and Federal Regulations
● Belmont Report: an ethics code that provides the foundation for the U.S federal regulations governing research on humans ○ Such research is called human subjects research ○ Covered both biomedical and behavioural research ○ Several infamous medical experiments played an important role in motivating the development of the Belmont Report ■ The Tuskegee Syphilis Study ● Recruited 600 financially poor Black men from the rural South, many of whom could not read or write, as research subjects. Two thirds of these men had advanced syphilis, but they didn’t know it and the researchers didn’t tell them ○ Researchers never attempted serious treatment—even after penicillin became widely available around 1950 ● Treatment would have interfered with the study’s goal of learning how syphilis spreads throughout the body, ultimately damaging the brain, heart, eyes, and other organs. ● Whenever a participant died, the researchers offered to help pay for the burial as an incentive to coerce the participant’s family to give them permission to perform an autopsy ● Study continued until the Washington Evening Star’s news article brought it into the open with the headline “Syphilis Patients Died Untreated” ○ Government stopped the study when it received public shock and outrage Principles and Guidelines ● Belmont Report identified three primary ethical principles: ○ Respect for persons ■ Respecting the autonomy and decisions of people who are capable of self-determination and protecting individuals who are not capable of self-determination ○ Beneficence ■ Highlights researchers’ obligation to maximise benefits and avoid, or at least minimise, possible harm to participants and society ○ Justice ■ Requires that potentially vulnerable groups—such as people with mental health problems, prisoners, and people living in economic poverty—not be exploited when selecting research participants ● From these three ethical principles, the Belmont Report derived guidelines for: ○ obtaining consent from research participants, ○ assessing the risks and benefits of research projects, and ○ selecting participants in a just way. ● Common Rule: specifies that U.S federal ethics regulations for human subjects research
○ a greater possibility that, if a different ethics review committee had reviewed the same research proposal, different decisions might have been made about (1) whether to approve that research proposal or (2) changes to the researchers’ procedures that would be needed to gain committee approval. ● Researchers may face ethical dilemmas in the following circumstances: ○ Adhering to one principle or standard might call for a course of action that conflicts with another principle or standard. ○ Different aspects of the same principle or standard might call for conflicting courses of action. ○ Different participants or other parties involved in a study might have competing interests; thus, applying the same principle or standard to each party would require conflicting courses of action.
Ethical Standards in Human Subjects Research ● APA ethical standards obligate psychologists to comply with governmental policies concerning institutional approval of research ● Institutional Review Board (IRB): an independent institutional committee that evaluates whether proposed research with human participants complies with federal ethics regulations ○ An IRB must comprise at least 5 members including, ■ (1) at least one member who is not otherwise affiliated with the institution, (2) at least one member with a primarily scientific background, and (3) at least one member whose background is primarily not scientific ■ (1) approving the study, in which case the research may begin; (2) disapproving the study, in which case it cannot be conducted; or (3) requiring the investigator to modify the study and resubmit the proposal for further review ● When a human subjects research proposal is submitted, it will first be examined to determine which of three major ethics review categories applies: ○ exempt research, ○ expedited review, or ○ full IRB review. ● Exempt Research: certain types of proposed research are eligible for exemption from some sections of Common Rule regulations and from IRB review ○ Note that exempt does not mean “exempt from following ethics codes.” Exempt research must still comply with all relevant ethics regulations. ● Benign behavioural intervention: an intervention that is “brief in duration, harmless, painless, not physically invasive, not likely to have significant adverse lasting impacts on the subjects, and the investigator has no reason to think the subjects will find the interventions offensive or embarrassing ● Expedited and Full IRB Review: fall within a level of minimal risk to participants, may be eligible for expedited review
○ Expedited review: the chair of the IRB can approve a research proposal, require modifications to it, or forward it to the full IRB for review ● Proposals that don’t qualify for exempt status or expedited review fall into the third category and must undergo a full IRB review
Assessing Risks and Benefits ● To approve a study, an IRB must determine that two conditions are satisfied concerning potential risks of harm to participants. ○ First, the IRB must be convinced that the researcher has minimised any scientifically necessary risks to participants. ○ Second, regardless of the level of risk, it must be outweighed by the study’s potential benefits. ● Evaluation of risk relative to benefits is called the “weighing the risk/benefit ratio”
Minimal Risk Versus More Than Minimal Risk ● Concept of “zero risk” calls for an absolute certainty that is typically impossible to guarantee ● Researchers and IRBs evaluate risk in terms of a standard called minimal risk. ● Minimal risk: means that the probability and magnitude of harm or discomfort anticipated in the research are not greater in and of themselves than those ordinarily encountered in daily life or during the performance of routine physical or psychological examinations of tests ○ Minimal risk is a reference point against which the risks to participants in a particular study are judged as posing no more than minimal risk or, instead, more than minimal risk.
Types of Harm ● Risk of physical harm ○ potential for pain, physical injury, or other physical discomfort ■ Ex. when researchers wish to examine how stressors such as sleep deprivation, noise, and heat influence people’s behaviour
● Risk of Psychological Harm ○ This involves the experiencing of negative emotions, threats to one’s self-esteem, and other types of psychological distress ■ For example, participants may perform tasks in which they are instructed to try to do well, and they may become frustrated, anxious, or sad if they perform poorly
● Risk of Social Harm and Loss of Privacy ○ This can occur when information obtained about a person becomes known, causing the person to experience undesirable social consequences
