Amber Chang
10/8/18
Psychology 101
Ethics in Psychological Research
Research ethics are general rules that are followed when doing experiments to insure that no permanent harm comes to the test subjects or anybody else as a result of the research(Khalulyan, 2018). This is perhaps even more important in sociology because the test subjects are human. A famous study in sociology involved having one group administering electric shocks to another group, to see how far people would go when following orders. They weren't really giving electric shocks, the group being "shocked" was instructed to act like they were being shocked. They couldn't really have them shock the other group, it would have violated research ethics. Another aspect of research ethics involves considering the impact discoveries you make will have on society. Research ethics would prevent many researchers from developing brainwashing techniques.
Federal regulations come into play whenever there is any federal involvement with the educational institution, and those regulations require that the institution form an Institutional Review Board (IRB) to authorize all human subject research prior to any implementation of the research. "Throughout the United States, institutions that conduct or facilitate research with human subjects – such as universities, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies – have created committees, known as IRBs, to review and clear research projects. These IRBs are mandated by federal law or are established pursuant to voluntary agreements between the institution and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. CUNY has such an agreement. The purpose of the IRB system is to ensure that researchers adopt protocols that protect the health, privacy and autonomy of the research subjects. In the past, subjects have been injured physically and psychologically by researchers insufficiently sensitive to their needs and interests. IRBs are tasked with reviewing the relevant research to ensure compliance with federal regulations. These regulations may be found at 45 CFR 46.101-409 and 63 FR 60364-60367. The complexity of the IRB process is largely attributable to the complicated nature of these regulations." (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, n.d., para. 1).
Having a set of ethics in experiments is important because as in any other medical field there is a code of ethics in regards to patients. If those ethics are violated it represents inability to follow rules, regulations, moral conduct and quite simply having compassion and empathy. To have a doctor, psychologist, social worker, therapist with little or no compassion or empathy is a contradiction to the occupation itself; and potentially dangerous to clients. Much research can be done by simple interview with relatives, medical records, school records and other passive means. When you get into things like experimentation and covert observation you involve an element of deception, or dishonesty in order to obtain or gather information which in itself violates the code of ethics because in a therapeutic or medical setting a patient is always expected to be completely honest about his or her condition, thoughts and feelings. In conclusion, you cannot ask for truth when you are lying yourself.
Basically, it protects human subjects and also the integrity of research itself. It includes things like confidentiality–e.g., a participant's data (i.e., questionnaire responses) will remains anonymous and cannot be traced back them (e.g., in psychology experiments the consent form is stored separately from the data). It includes informed consent–the subject is entitled to know the purpose of the study, what they'll be required to do, and any potential benefits to themselves or others/society more broadly. Exception: deception is permitted in some instances when the benefits are thought to outweigh potential harm/risk (e.g., subject may believe a study is about memory, but actually they're completing an implicit cognitive task that measures subconscious racism). All research involving human subjects must go through a review board committee(Khalulyan, 2018). Researchers can be liable for subjects to an extent (e.g. clinical researchers must intervene if a subject indicates they are suicidal). Ethics also outline rules about publication–for example, graduate students who contribute "xyz" to a study are entitled to authorship on its publication–but there are no equal protections for undergraduates.
First thing is that a study of this nature would likely have to be approved by a Human Subjects committee who determine just those things- what could be the potential harm done to the subjects, and would the potential benefit gained from the study's results justify the potential harm. If the committee feels the design, methods, etc are unethical, they won't approve the study. If they give informed consent (which states any adverse effects they might experience during the course of the study), then they know what they might be getting into if they agree to participate(Khalulyan, 2018). If deception is involved, the subjects won't be told the true nature of the study until it is completed, but the committee looks at that issue beforehand if deception is warranted to begin with. It is an ethical requirement to fully debrief the subjects after the study, so even if deception is used, the subjects will have the study explained to them afterwards and the reasons deception was used. Another ethics requirement is to provide resources (such as counseling, etc.) to help the subjects deal with any adverse results stemming from what they were subjected to in the experiment.
So why was Milgram’s experiment unethical? For one, it raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation itself because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the participants (even though it could be said that this stress was brought on by their own free actions). Most modern scientists would consider the experiment unethical today, though it resulted in valuable insights into human psychology. It was unethical because he "tricked" the subjects into believing that they were inflicting harm/pain on other people. This was traumatic for the subjects and resulted in psychological distress for them. Although the study provided very valuable knowledge about human behavior, it was an unethical study because it harmed the people it was studying. The rules for ethical treatment of human subjects are much more stringent now, and a study like that would never be permitted. The central issue in Stan Milgram's experiment in obedience to authority was the matter of the "informed consent" of the voluntary participants. While revealing the exact nature and process of the experiment to potential participants would have compromised the purpose and results, at the minimum Dr. Milgram should have at least told the participants that they were going to be exposed to situations that they may find distressing and uncomfortable.
To be honest, I am not sure that it is possible to create a representative alternative to Milgram's study without encountering some ethical issues involved being as though the hypothesis they are investigating is whether or not a person can be made to obey an authority figure and inflict harm on another person. You are always going to come back to the issues of inflicting psychological harm on the participant themselves, and informed consent. You cannot fully carry out this experiment when the participant knows what is going to happen. Unless you make what the participant does to the stooge (i.e. shocking them in the original experiment) not very serious, there is a chance that the participant will be very shocked and upset by their actions after all is revealed, but then if you reduce the severity of the action, the question arises 'does the experiment have internal validity – is the hypothesis really being investigated?' However, if I could think of some tweak if would be to change the shock therapy part of the experiment and perhaps change it to something less harmful.