Ensuring That Research Is Ethical

(Ethics in Researchs) Ensuring That Research Is Ethical

Making decisions about the ethics of research involves weighing the costs and benefits of conducting versus not conducting a given research project. We have seen that these costs involve potential harm to the research participants, and to the fi eld, whereas the benefi ts include knowledge about human behavior and educational gains to the individual participants. Most generally, the ethics of a given research project are determined through a cost-benefi t analysis, in which the costs are compared to the benefits. If the potential costs of the research appear to outweigh any potential benefi ts that might come from it, then the research should not proceed. 

         Of course, arriving at a cost-benefi t ratio is not simple. For one thing, there is no way to know ahead of time what the effects of a given procedure will be on every person or animal who participates or what benefi t to society the research is likely to produce. In addition, what is ethical is defined by the current state of thinking within society, and thus costs and benefits change over time. Consider, for instance, a classic experiment by Aronson and Mills (1959) investigating the hypothesis that individuals who underwent a severe initiation in order to be admitted to a group would later have greater attraction to the group than to individuals who had not been so initiated. 

       Female undergraduates were told that they would subsequently be joining a discussion group on the “psychology of sex.” In some of the conditions,  participants were asked if they would be embarrassed to talk about sex. If they answered no, they were admitted to the group. But in the “severe initiation” condition, participants were told that they had to prove that they could discuss sex frankly, and they were asked to read aloud (to the male experimenter) a list of twelve obscene words and two vivid descriptions of sexual activity from contemporary novels before joining the group. 

         Because today’s standards are different than they were in 1959, such an experiment would probably be perceived by most as a violation of ethical principles. Society no longer considers it appropriate for a powerful male experimenter to require a less powerful female undergraduate to talk about sexual behavior in his presence. Although the women were given the choice of not participating, it was most certainly diffi cult for them to do so, as they would have lost their experimental credit as well as the time they had spent signing up for and reporting to the experiment.  

        One interesting tack on determining the cost-benefi t ratio is to assess it empirically. One approach (Berscheid, Baron, Dermer, & Libman, 1973) is to describe the research project in its entirety to a separate group of individuals who are similar to potential participants and inquire whether they would participate. Alternatively, the research could be described and people asked to rate the potential costs to participants (Schlenker & Forsyth, 1977). Again, potential participants do not seem to perceive most research as unethical. In fact, students generally rate the potential benefi ts as greater than the costs and estimate a lower cost-benefi t ratio than do the scientists conducting the research!  

The Institutional Review Board 

        The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations require that all universities receiving funds from the department set up an institutional review board (IRB) to determine whether proposed research meets department regulations. The IRB consists of at least fi ve members, including, in addition to scientists, at least one individual whose primary interest is in nonscientifi c domains (for instance, a community member, a religious leader, or a legal specialist) and at least one member who is not affi liated with the institution at which the research is to be conducted. This composition ensures that the group represents a variety of areas of expertise, not just other scientists, who may tend to overrate the importance of scientific research.

       All federally funded research, and almost all university research that is not federally funded, must be approved by the IRB. To gain approval, the scientist submits a written application to the IRB requesting permission to conduct research. This proposal must include a description of the experimental procedure and, if the research uses human participants, an explanation of how informed consent will be obtained and how the participants will be debriefed. 

         In addition, the application must detail any potential risks to the participants, as well as the potential benefi ts to be gained from the research. The basic goal of the IRB is to determine, on the basis of the research description, the cost-benefi t ratio of a study. The IRB may suggest modifi cations to the procedure or (in rare cases) may inform the scientist that the research violates Department of Health and Human Services guidelines and thus cannot be conducted at the university. A similar committee, the animal care and use committee, makes decisions about animal research and ensures that animals used in research are treated in a humane manner. Board members conduct regular inspections of all of the animal labs at the institution to be certain that the animals are healthy and free from stress and that the research is conducted in accordance with appropriate guidelines.

The Researcher’s Own Ethics

       Despite the possibility of empirical assessment of ethical questions and the availability of institutional guidelines, because questions of scientifi c ethics are at heart issues of personal value, each person must draw her or his own conclusions about what is right and what is wrong in scientifi c research. Thus, the ultimate responsibility lies with the investigator. Unfortunately, there is no single method for anticipating and alleviating all the possible ethical problems that can arise in the conduct of behavioral research. Rather, what is involved is an attempt to fi nd an appropriate balance between the rights and dignity of the research participants and the importance of continuing scientific inquiry. 

        Overall, when the proper safeguards are followed, the rights and dignity of human participants are generally upheld. Yet, each research project has to be evaluated in terms of potential ethical problems. Sometimes alternative  procedures can be used; at other times the study must be canceled. When in doubt, consult with instructors or colleagues and others outside of the field. In many cases, the IRB at your university will be the fi nal judge of the ethics of your research. 

Correctly and Honestly Reporting Research Results

Although to this point we have focused on the safety, rights, and dignity of the research participant, ethical behavior in science includes honesty not only in conducting research, but also in reporting it and giving proper credit for ideas. Science is based on truth, and scientists are expected to be truthful in all aspects of their research. In this sense, the rules are simple—report exactly what you did and what you discovered in your research. Do not lie or mislead the reader in any way. The methods of the research should be completely and fully described, and the statistical analyses reported accurately. According to American Psychology Association guidelines, scientists are also obligated to publish corrections to existing publications if they later discover signifi cant errors in them. Furthermore, scientists are obligated to interpret their data as fairly as they can. Remember that it is completely appropriate to use the work of others as a basis for your research—but do not plagiarize. When you have taken ideas from others, be certain to appropriately cite the sources of the work. 

         Although we can assume that most scientists are honest, they are nevertheless only human, and therefore, some errors will occasionally be made. In some cases, mistakes are made because the scientist is not careful about how he or she collects and analyzes data. For instance, errors may be made in key-punching the data or in the process of conducting the statistical analyses. It is, therefore, extremely important that researchers check their data carefully to be sure that their statistical analyses are correct. Some suggestions for ensuring that data are analyzed correctly can be found in Appendix B of this book.

            In rare cases, a scientist may intentionally alter or fabricate data, and in such cases we say that he or she has committed scientific fraud. Although scientific fraud does not happen very often, it is a very serious event when it does occur, because it can lead people to adopt unwise social policies on the basis of the fraudulent data, or can lead scientists to spend time conducting follow-up research that is based on invalid knowledge.

           Because scientific fraud is so costly, scientists are naturally concerned to prevent its occurrence. The most effective route is for each scientist to take full responsibility for his or her research and to carefully monitor the behavior of his or her co-workers. Fortunately, most scientists do not want to commit fraud, because if they do so they know that their research results will not be able to be replicated by others, and, as we will see in Chapter 12, it is this replication that leads to scientific progress.

Using Animals as Research Participants

( Ethics in Research ) Using Animals as Research Participants

To this point in this chapter we have been considering the ethical decisions involved in conducting research with human beings. But because animals make up an important part of the natural world, and because some research cannot be conducted using humans, animals are also participants in behavioral research. Probably to a large extent because of ethical concerns, most research is now conducted with rats, mice, and birds, and the use of other animals in research is declining (Thomas & Blackman, 1992). As with ethical decisions regarding human participants, a set of basic principles has been developed that helps researchers make informed decisions about such research. 

             Because the use of animals in research involves a personal value, people naturally disagree about this practice. Although many people accept the value of such research (Plous, 1996), a minority of people, including animal-rights activists, believe that it is ethically wrong to conduct research on animals. They base this argument on the assumption that because animals are also living creatures, they have the same status as humans and no harm should ever be done to any living thing. 

            Most scientists, however, reject this view. They argue that such beliefs ignore the potential benefits that have and continue to come from such research. For instance, drugs that can reduce the incidence of cancer or acquired immune defi ciency syndrome may fi rst be tested on animals, and surgery that can save human lives may fi rst be practiced on animals. Research on animals has also led to a better understanding of the physiological causes of depression, phobias, and stress, among other illnesses (Miller, 1985). 

           

In contrast to animal-rights activists, then, scientists believe that because there are many benefi ts that accrue from animal research, such research can and should continue as long as the humane treatment of the animals used in the research is guaranteed. And the animals that are used in scientific research are treated humanely. The scientists who use them in their research are extremely careful to maintain the animals in good health—after all, a healthy animal is the best research participant. Furthermore, they use the fewest animals necessary for the research, and they subject them to the least possible amount of stress. A summary of the American Psychological Association’s guidelines regarding the care and use of animals in research is presented in Table 3.4.

Honestly Describing theNature and Use of the Research

(Ethics in Researchs) Honestly Describing the Nature and Use of the Research

Perhaps the most widespread ethical concern to the participants in behavioral research is the extent to which researchers employ deception. Deception occurs whenever research participants are not completely and fully informed about the nature of the research project before participating in it. Deception may occur in an active way, such as when the researcher tells the participants that he or she is studying learning when in fact the experiment really concerns obedience to authority. In other cases the deception is more passive, such as when participants are not told about the hypothesis being studied or the potential use of the data being collected. For instance, a researcher studying eyewitness testimony might create a fake crime scene and then later test the participants on their memory of it. 

         Both active and passive deception can be problematic. For instance, an experiment in which individuals participated in a study about interviewing without first being told that the results of the research were going to be used to develop interrogation procedures for prisoners of war would be highly unethical, even though the deception was passive in nature, because participants might have decided not to participate in the research had they been fully informed. 

When Deception Is Necessary

        The argument against the use of deception in behavioral research is straightforward. The relationship between the researcher and the participant is based on mutual trust and cooperation. If deception is involved, this trust may be broken. Although some have argued that deception of any sort should never be used in any research (Baumrind, 1985), there are also persuasive arguments supporting its use. Social psychologists defend the use of deception on the grounds that it is needed to get participants to act naturally and to enable the study of social phenomena. They argue that it would be impossible to study such phenomena as altruism, aggression, and stereotyping without using deception because if participants were informed ahead of time what the study involved, this knowledge would certainly change their behavior. Furthermore, social psychologists argue that to study some phenomena, such as stress, it is more ethical to deceive the participants into thinking that they are going to participate in a stressful situation than to actually expose them to the stress itself.

          One review found that 58 percent of social psychological experiments used some form of deception (Adair, Dushenko, & Lindsay, 1985). The need to employ deception in order to conduct certain types of research has been recognized by scientists, and the code of ethics of the APA allows deception (including concealed observation) when necessary. However, given the potential dangers of deception, the APA code also requires researchers to explicitly consider how their research might be conducted without the use of deception. (Other scientifi c organizations also have codes of ethics regarding the treatment of research participants.) 

Simulation Studies: An Alternative to Deception 

         One technique for avoiding deception in some cases is the use of simulation studies (Rubin, 1973). In a simulation study, participants are fully informed about the nature of the research and asked to behave “as if” they were in a social setting of interest. A situation is set up that is similar to that in the real world in terms of important elements. For instance, people might be asked to imagine that they are a manager of a large corporation and to make decisions the way they think a manager would, or they might be asked to imagine a situation in which they might or might not help another person. Unfortunately, as we have seen in Chapter 1, asking people what they think they would do often does not refl ect what they actually do. In fact, the power of much behavioral research is the demonstration that people cannot predict what they, or others, would do in a given setting. 

       Despite these problems, some simulation studies have been very effective in providing insights into human behavior. One well-known example is the “Stanford Prison Study” (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973). In this study, college students were randomly assigned to play the role of either prisoners or prison guards in a mock prison. Those assigned to be prisoners were “arrested,” issued prison numbers, and put in cells. The participants who became “guards” were given uniforms and nightsticks. This simulation was so successful in the sense of participants taking it seriously that on the first day the “guards” began to create demeaning experiences for “prisoners” who banded together in a hunger strike. The study had to be canceled after only a few days because of the potential for psychological stress to the “inmates.” 

The Consequences of Deception

        As with any ethical decision, there are differences of opinion about the appropriateness of using deception. Some scientists believe that deception should never be used in any research (Ortmann & Hertwig, 1997), whereas others believe that deception is a normal and useful part of psychological research (Kimmel, 1998). Although it is always preferable, when possible, to avoid the use of deception (and in fact many experiments are entirely “honest”), research investigating the effects of deception on participants in behavioral research suggests that its use does not normally produce any long-lasting psychological harm. In fact, students who have participated in experiments in which they have been deceived report enjoying them more and receiving more educational benefi ts from them than have those who participated in nondeceptive research (Smith & Richardson, 1983). It is ironic, in fact, that the use of deception may be more harmful to the ability of the researchers to continue their research than it is to the research participants. Because the use of deception is so widespread, participants may arrive at studies expecting to be deceived. As a result, the deception used in the research is not likely to be effective in accomplishing the goals for which it was designed. Thus, the most powerful argument against the use of deception is that its continued use may defeat the goals of behavioral science research itself! 

Debriefing 

Because behavioral science research has the potential for producing longterm changes in the research participants, these participants should be fully debriefed after their participation. The debriefing occurs immediately after the research has ended and is designed to explain the purposes and procedures of the research and remove any harmful aftereffects of participation. Although debriefi ng is an essential part of all behavioral research, it is particularly important in research that involves deception because it can be used both to assess the effectiveness of the deception and to alleviate its potential impact on research participants. Because this portion of the experiment is so important, suffi cient time to do it properly should always be allotted. 

 Conducting a Postexperimental Interview. In many cases, the debriefing procedure is rather elaborate and is combined with a postexperimental interview in which the participants’ reactions to the research are assessed. The participants may fi rst be asked to verbally express or (if they are run in groups) to write down their thoughts about the research. These reactions may often indicate whether the respondents experienced the research as expected, if they were suspicious, and if they have taken the research seriously. 

       When deception has been used, the researcher may want to determine if it has been effective through the use of a  suspicion check—questioning the participants to determine whether they believed the experimental manipulation or guessed the research hypothesis. One approach, proposed by Mills (1976), is to tell the participants that “there is more to this experiment than I have told you. I’m curious—do you know what it might be?” The idea is that if the participant is suspicious about the deception, he or she will say so (“I knew that there really wasn’t anyone in the other room”), whereas participants who are not suspicious will not know how to answer the question or will answer with something irrelevant. 

        After this initial part of the debriefi ng is completed, the researcher next fully explains in detail the purposes of the experiment, including the research hypothesis and how it is being tested. The scientist should explain the goals of the research in an accurate and fair manner, and the importance of the research should not be overstated. Thus, the debriefi ng also serves an educational function in which the participants learn something about behavioral science research and how it is conducted. Because the educational value of participation in a research project is one of the benefi ts of behavioral research, the researcher should be sure to design the debriefi ng to maximize this function. 

            The last goal of the debriefi ng is to try to eliminate long-term consequences of having participated in the research. Any deception that has been used is fully explained to the participants, and its necessity is justified. A thorough debriefing procedure has been shown to be an effective method of reducing the harmful effects of deception (Smith & Richardson, 1983). 

         Finally, the participants are given ample time to ask questions about the research and may be requested not to discuss the research with others until the end of the semester, or whenever the data collection will have fi nished. The experimenter should be certain to supply his or her name and telephone number to the participants and encourage them to call with any questions or concerns. 

Ensuring the Effectiveness of the Debriefing. Debriefing does not solve all the problems of treating participants with respect, nor does it guarantee that the outcomes of unethical procedures can be “taken back” through followup procedures. Ill effects may persist even after debriefing (Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard, 1975), particularly when the participant has been led to engage in embarrassing or stressful behaviors. When this might be the case, the experimenter may conduct a process debriefing—an active attempt to undo any changes that might have occurred. For instance, if the experiment has involved the creation of a negative mood state, a positive mood induction procedure might be given to all participants before they leave. However, despite the use of careful debriefing procedures, it is often almost impossible to entirely undo the effects of experimental manipulations, and a participant who has engaged in behaviors that he or she later regrets may be affected by these behaviors despite a careful debriefing. 

            In the end, what is most important is that the participants feel that they have been treated fairly in the experiment. Some of the most important characteristics of an ethical research project using human participants are outlined in Table 3.3. The manner in which the debriefi ng is conducted may have a large impact on the participants’ feelings about being deceived and their perceptions of the research. Other experimenter behaviors that can lead to more positive experiences for the participants include showing up on time, acting in a friendly manner, allowing enough time for questions to arise, and offering to send the written results of research projects to participants if they want them (and then actually doing so). Of course, when participants receive course credit for participation, the experimenter is also expected to report their participation in the research to the appropriate people in a timely manner. Because experimenters have higher status than participants, this relationship can easily be abused, and researchers must continually strive to avoid such problems.

Maintaining Awareness of Power Differentials

(Ethics in Researchs) Maintaining Awareness of Power Differentials

One of the basic ethical concerns in research with humans involves the inherent power differential between the researcher and the research participant. This differential occurs because the researcher has higher status than the participant and thus is able (and indeed expected) to control the participant’s behavior and also how the data contributed are used. The experimenter tells the participant what to do and when to do it and also determines whether the participant receives course credit or payment for participation. Although, as we will discuss in the next section, ethical procedures require that the participant always have the option to choose not to participate in the research and to withdraw his or her data, the high-status researcher may be infl uential in preventing him or her from doing so.1 

Avoiding Abuses of Power

      The fact that the researcher has power over the participant places the researcher in a position in which there is the possibility for abuse of this power. Such abuse might range from showing up late to the research session without apology, to promising the participant money for participation that is not actually available, or even to hypnotizing the participant and attempting to learn intimate details about his or her life without the participant’s knowledge. Any time the research participant is coerced into performing a behavior that he or she later regrets, the power relationship between the researcher and the participant has been misused. The inherent power differential between researcher and participant demands that the former continually and carefully ensure that all research participants have been treated fairly and respectfully. 

Respecting Participants’ Privacy

    One potential source of ethical concern in behavioral research, which stems from the control the researcher has over the use of the participant’s data, involves the invasion of the privacy of the research participants or violations of the confi dentiality of the data that they contribute. The private lives of research participants may be invaded in fi eld research when, for instance, the researcher searches through the garbage in a neighborhood or observes behavior in a public setting such as in a small town. These issues become particularly problematic when the research results are later published in a manner in which the identities of the individuals might be discovered. As a result, scientists often use fi ctitious names of persons and places in their research reports. 

             The privacy of research participants may also be violated in questionnaire and laboratory studies. In many cases, respecting the privacy of participants is not a major problem because the data are not that personally revealing. Exceptions may occur when the questionnaires involve intimate personal information such as sexual behavior or alcohol and drug use. In such cases the data should be kept anonymous. The respondent does not put any identifying information onto the questionnaire, and therefore the researcher cannot tell which participant contributed the data. To help ensure that the data are anonymous, individuals can seal their questionnaires in an envelope and place them with other sealed envelopes in a box. (As we will see in later chapters, making the data anonymous may also lead the respondents to answer questions more honestly.) 

          In other cases, the data cannot be anonymous because the researcher needs to keep track of which respondent contributed the data. This holds true when questionnaires are given to the same people at more than one time point or when participants are selected on the basis of their questionnaires for follow-up research. Here, the solution that respects the privacy of the individual is to keep the data confidential. One technique is to have each participant use a unique code number to identify her or his data, such as the last four digits of the social security number. In this way, the researcher can keep track of which person completed which questionnaire, but others will not be able to connect the data with the individual who contributed it. In all cases, collected data that have any identifying information must be kept in locked rooms or storage cabinets to ensure confi dentiality, and the researcher must be aware of the potential for abuse of such information. Because many data are now stored on computer disks, the researcher must be especially careful that no copies of these data are in the public domain, such as stored on public-access computer networks.

Providing Freedom of Choice

(Ethics in Researchs) Providing Freedom of Choice

The second goal of ethical research is to guarantee that participants have free choice regarding whether they wish to participate in research. In an ideal situation each individual has the opportunity to learn about the research and to choose to participate or not participate without considering any other factors. In reality, freedom of choice is more diffi cult to attain. An individual who is in fi nancial need of the money being offered for participation by a researcher is less able to decline to participate than one who is not in such need, and a college student who has trekked across campus to a laboratory is likely to choose to participate rather than having to return later for another study. 

Conducting Research Outside the Laboratory 

        Although threats to freedom of choice may occur in experiments conducted in scientific laboratories, they are even more common in research conducted in real-world settings, particularly in naturalistic observational studies where the behavior of individuals is observed without their knowledge. In lab studies, the individual volunteers to participate and knows that an experiment is occurring. But in observational research, the participant may not even know that research is being conducted. We can ask whether it is ethical to create situations that infringe on passersby, such as research designed to see who helps in a situation created by the researchers (Piliavin, Rodin, & Piliavin, 1969), particularly because the individuals who were the “participants” in the experiment were never informed that the helping situation was staged.                 

        Concerns with free choice also occur in institutional settings, such as schools, psychiatric hospitals, corporations, and prisons, when individuals are required by the institutions to take certain tests, or when employees are assigned to or asked by their supervisors to participate in research. Such issues are often debated in colleges and universities in which all students enrolled in introductory psychology are required either to participate in research or to perform other potentially less-interesting tasks, such as writing papers about research reports.

         University scientists and instructors argue that participation in psychological research teaches students about the conduct of research and that if there were no research participants, there would be no psychology to study. They also argue that it is more scientifi cally valid to require students to participate, rather than to have a volunteer system, because volunteer participants react differently from nonvolunteers (Rosenthal & Rosnow, 1975). The students, however, may argue that the time they spend going to these research sessions

might be better used studying, that the specifi c experiments are sometimes not related to the subject matter of their course or are not well explained to them, and thus that the requirement seems more motivated to serve the convenience of researchers.

            There are, again, no easy answers to these questions. However, keep in mind that there are potential gains for the participants in the form of knowledge about behavior and the practice of behavioral research. Furthermore, this research can be expected to benefi t society at large. However, benefit to the participants occurs only when the researchers fully explain the purposes and expected results of research to participants when the research has ended. It is the duty of the experimenter to do so. Students should make a point to use their participation in research projects to learn something about how and why research is conducted. They should ask questions and attempt to fi nd out what the research is designed to test and how their data will be used.

Securing Informed Consent

The most important tool for providing freedom of choice and reducing psychological stress from participation in behavioral science research is the use of informed consent. According to guidelines provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2001), informed consent must include 

(1) a statement that the study involves research and the expected duration of the participation; a description of the procedures to be followed, and identification of any procedures which are experimental;

(2) a description of any reasonably foreseeable risks or discomforts to the participant;

(3) a description of any benefi ts to the participant or to others which may reasonably be expected from the research;

(4) a disclosure of appropriate alternative procedures or courses of treatment, if any, that might be advantageous to the participant;

(5) a statement describing the extent, if any, to which confi dentiality of records identifying the participant will be maintained;

(6) for research involving more than minimal risk, an explanation as to whether any compensation is to be made and an explanation as to whether any medical treatments are available if injury occurs and, if so, what they consist of, or where further information may be obtained;

(7) an explanation of whom to contact for answers to pertinent questions about the research and research participants’ rights, and whom to contact in the event of a research-related injury to the participant; and 

(8) a statement that participation is voluntary, refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of benefi ts to which the participant is otherwise entitled, and the participant may discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefi ts to which the participant is otherwise entitled.

         A sample informed consent form is shown in Table 3.2. Informed consent involves several aspects, each of which is designed to reduce the possibility of ethical problems. First, the potential participant is presented with a sheet of paper on which to record demographic information, including age. This information assures the experimenter that the research participant is old enough to make her or his own decision about whether or not to participate. When children are used in research, the corresponding ethical safeguards are even more rigorous. In this case, a parent or guardian must give approval for the individual to participate in research. The American Psychological Association (APA) and the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) have developed guidelines for research with children as well as adults. 

        Second, the potential participant is given an informed consent form explaining the procedure of the research, who is conducting it, how the results of the research will be used, and what is going to happen during the research session. Third, the potential participant is informed of her or his rights during the research. These rights include the freedom to leave the research project at any point without penalty and the knowledge that the data will be kept confi dential. After carefully reading this information, the individual is given the opportunity to ask any questions. At this point, the participant signs the form to indicate that she or he has read and (the researcher hopes) understood the information. 

          It is rare that an individual declines to participate in or continue a behavioral research project. This is perhaps because of the use of informed consent and the determination by the researcher that the research project is not ethically problematic, but it may also be due to social factors that reduce the likelihood of quitting. Once a participant has arrived at the research session (and even more so when the project has begun), it becomes diffi cult for him or her to express a desire to leave. As a result, the researcher must continually keep in mind that he or she has great control over the behaviors of the research participant, must continually be on the lookout for signs that the participant is uncomfortable, and must be prepared to stop the research if any problems surface. 

          Because many students participate in research projects to earn credit in behavioral science courses, one issue that sometimes arises concerns how to treat a student who decides not to participate. When this decision is made before the research begins, it seems reasonable not to give credit because the student can usually find another experiment to participate in with which he or she is more comfortable. However, for a person who has already begun the procedure under the good faith of fi nishing but later decides to quit, it is usually better to award full credit.

Weighing Informed Consent Versus the Research Goals 

        Although informed consent has obvious advantages from the point of view of the participant, it has disadvantages from the point of view of the researcher. Consider what might have happened if Milgram had told his research participants that his experiment was about obedience to authority, rather than telling them that he was studying learning. In that case, the participants would probably have carefully monitored their behavior to avoid being seen as “obedient” types, and he would have obtained very different results. However, the participants’ behavior in that case would seem to refl ect more a reaction to the informed consent form than what might be expected if the participants had not been alerted. In such cases, the preferred strategy is to tell participants as much as possible about the true nature of the study, particularly everything that might be expected to infl uence their willingness to participate, while still withholding the pieces of information that allow the study to work. Often creative uses of informed consent may allow researchers to provide accurate information to participants and still enable the research to continue. For instance, participants may be told that they may or may not be given alcohol or that their behavior may or may not be videotaped at some point. In these cases, the individuals are informed of the procedures and potential risks and give their consent to participate in any or all of the procedures they might encounter, but the research is not jeopardized.

Protecting Research Participants From Physical and Psychological Harm

(Ethics in Research) Protecting Research Participants From Physical and Psychological Harm

The most direct ethical concern of the behavioral scientist is the possibility that his or her research will cause harm to the research participants. Fortunately, the danger of physical harm from participation in behavioral science research is very low. Nevertheless, given scientists’ interest in studying people’s emotions, participation in behavioral research may in some cases produce rather extreme emotional reactions, and these may have long-term negative outcomes.

Types of Threats

        Some past research has posed severe threats to the psychological welfare of the participants. One example is the well-known research of Stanley Milgram (1974) investigating obedience to authority. In these studies, participants were induced by an experimenter to administer electric shocks to another person so that Milgram could study the extent to which they would obey the demands of a scientist. Most participants evidenced high levels of stress resulting from the psychological confl ict they experienced between engaging in aggressive and dangerous behavior and following the instructions of the experimenter. In another experiment (Bramel, 1962), male college students were told, on the basis of false data, that they had “homosexual tendencies.” Although it was later revealed to them that this feedback was not true, the participants may have experienced psychological stress during the course of the experiment and after it was over.

        Although studies such as those of Milgram and Bramel would no longer be conducted because the scientific community is now much more sensitized to the potential of such procedures to create emotional discomfort or harm, other studies that present less severe, but potentially real, threats are still conducted. For instance, to study the effects of failure on self-esteem or alcohol consumption, experimenters may convince research participants that they have failed on an important self-relevant task such as a test of social skills or intelligence (Hull & Young, 1983). Or to better understand the effects of depression on learning, researchers may place individuals in negative moods (Bower, 1981).

          In other cases, although the research does not directly create stressful situations, it does have the unfortunate outcome of leading the participants to discover something unpleasant about themselves, such as their tendency to stereotype others or to make unwise decisions. Although it might be argued  that the participants could make good use of this information and improve their lives from it, having found out the information might nevertheless be stressful to them, and they certainly did not ask to be told about these aspects of their personality. In still other cases, participants are led to perform behaviors that they may later be embarrassed about or ashamed of. For instance, in one experiment investigating the factors that lead college students to cheat (Kahle, 1980), a test was administered to students and the test papers collected. Then the papers were returned to the students for grading, and it was made rather easy for them to change their answers on the exam so as to improve their score. Many students did so. Unknown to the students, however, their original responses had been recorded, so that the experimenters could discover how many students cheated by changing their answers.

The Potential for Lasting Impact

Obviously, procedures that have the potential to create negative moods, stress, self-doubts, and anxiety in research participants involve some potential costs to these individuals. Although the psychological states created in these situations are assumed to be only temporary, there is no guarantee that they  will not have longer-lasting consequences. Individuals who have been induced to shock another person or to cheat on an examination may be permanently changed as a result of their participation in the research. Furthermore, these harmful psychological outcomes may not even be immediately apparent to the participant or the experimenter, but occur only later.

        Although researchers should always treat the possibility that their research will produce psychological harm seriously, and choose alternative methods of testing their research hypotheses whenever possible, fortunately most evidence suggests that participation in psychological research does not produce long-term psychological damage. For instance, even though the men in Milgram’s experiment obviously felt stress during the experiment itself, they did not report any long-term negative outcomes, nor did a team of psychiatrists fi nd any evidence of harmful effects (Milgram, 1974). In fact, the participants in social research usually report that they experienced only minor disturbances and that they learned much about themselves and about the conduct of social science from their participation. Nevertheless, there is always the possibility that at least some research participants may be psychologically hurt by participating in behavioral research.

What Is Ethical Research?

( Ethics in Research) What Is Ethical Research?

Although the focus of this chapter is the ethical treatment of human and animal participants in behavioral science research, concern about the welfare of research participants is only one aspect of ethics in behavioral research. The ethical concerns of scientists also involve maintaining honesty in conducting and reporting scientific research, giving appropriate credit for ideas and effort, and considering how knowledge gained through research should be used. Determining whether a research project is ethical is a diffi cult enterprise because there are no clearly “right” or clearly “wrong” answers to ethical questions. By defi nition, ethics involves values, not facts. Nevertheless, as we will see, there is an agreed-on set of basic ethical principles that must be adhered to by those conducting research.  

       Ethical concerns are not unique to the behavioral sciences. Rather, they are part of the process of conducting research in any scientifi c fi eld. Physicists have long debated the ethics of having helped develop the nuclear bomb. Biologists worry about the potential outcomes of creating genetically engineered human babies, and chemists are concerned about the environmental effects of the chemicals they devise. Medical researchers agonize over the ethics of withholding potentially benefi cial drugs from control groups in clinical trials in which only some of the participants are given the drugs and of using animals to test potentially dangerous medical treatments. In each of these cases, however, scientists have justifi ed their decision to conduct the research with the belief that in the long run the potential gains of the resulting knowledge will outweigh any potential costs that may be incurred by participants or by society at large. 

          Some research, such as the forced participation in medical experiments conducted on prisoners by the Nazis during World War II (which gave rise to the Nuremberg code), is perceived as immoral by almost everyone. Other procedures, such as the use of animals in research testing the effectiveness of  drugs, or even the practice of asking an individual to complete a questionnaire without fi rst informing him or her what the questionnaire is designed to assess, are more controversial. However, because scientifi c research is designed to and has provided information that has improved the lives of many people, it is not reasonable to argue that because scientific research has costs, no research should be conducted. This argument fails to consider the fact that there are signifi cant costs to not doing research and that these costs may be greater than the potential costs involved in going ahead with the research project (Rosenthal, 1994). 

          Treating research participants ethically matters not only for the welfare of the individuals themselves but also for the continued effectiveness of behavioral science as a scientifi c discipline. For one thing, if society begins to question the ethics of behavioral research, this may create a general suspicion about and mistrust of the results of scientific research. Unethical behavior may also lead to government sanctions against the conduct of behavioral research. For instance, the concealed recording of jury sessions by psychologists led to the passing of legislation that entirely banned such studies (Vaughan, 1967). These issues demand that scientists assess the ethical principles of each and every research project and realize that they may have to change or potentially even abandon certain research procedures.

         This chapter discusses how scientists make judgments about ethical principles regarding the use of humans and animals as research participants. These decisions rely on the individual values of the scientist, as well as established ethical codes developed by scientifi c organizations and federal governments. In the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services provides the guidelines for ethical standards in research, and these are available at www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.htm. Perhaps the most relevant organization for behavioral scientists is the American Psychological Association (APA); a summary of this organization’s guidelines for ethical research with human participants is presented in Table 3.1. The basic goal of the chapter is to inform you about these guidelines and to thoroughly discuss the relevant issues, so that you will be able to use this knowledge to develop your own conclusions and guide your own decisions. We will focus on four basic goals of ethical research (Diener & Crandall, 1978): 

• Protecting participants from physical and psychological harm

• Providing freedom of choice about participating in the research

• Maintaining awareness of the power differentials between researcher and participant

• Honestly describing the nature and use of the research to participants

Ethics in Research

Ethics in Research

One of the major difficulties involved in studying human beings, and even animals, is that they often behave quite differently when they are being studied than they would otherwise. As a result, behavioral scientists are faced with a basic challenge: to learn what people do when they are not being studied, behavioral scientists must create research designs that measure important everyday phenomena and that allow research participants the freedom and motivation to openly and honestly express their thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

And scientists must do this in a way that prevents participants from guessing what is being studied and altering their responses as a result. 

           To create situations in which behavior can be validly assessed, scientists sometimes engage in practices that may be questioned on ethical grounds. For instance, researchers may lead people to participate in research without telling them that they are participating. Researchers may require introductory psychology students to participate in research projects and then deceive these students, at least temporarily, about the nature of the research. In some cases, researchers may induce stress, anxiety, or negative moods in the participants, expose them to weak electrical shocks, or convince them to behave in ways that violate their moral standards. And researchers may sometimes use animals in their research, potentially harming them in the process. 

            Of course, behavioral scientists have a basic reason for engaging in these practices. For one, as we will discuss in more detail in the chapters to come, creating such situations is frequently the only way that important behavioral phenomena can be objectively studied. Second, they feel that although there  may well be some costs to human research participants when they participate in research, there is also a great benefit to humanity to be gained from the research. This benefit is, of course, the knowledge about human behavior that accrues through the conduct of behavioral research. Furthermore, scientists also believe that there are potential benefi ts to the research participants in the form of learning about how research is conducted and experiencing the satisfaction of having contributed to the scientific literature. In each case, before beginning to conduct the research, scientists have come to the conclusion that the potential benefi ts of conducting the research outweigh the potential costs to the research participants.