Psychology Ethics: Ethics and Animal Ethics

1) Integrity
2) Respect
3) Responsibility
4) Competence

The honesty and accuracy of the researcher in dealing with others whereby professional boundaries much be maintained.

The researcher must be willing to explain the ethics of a study whilst carrying out research that maintains the dignity of others.

A researcher should maintain professional boundaries and take care of others doing them no harm. They must also assess harm in a debrief and take steps to put an issues right.

A researcher must no claim to be competent in studying something when they aren’t. All research should be carried out to the best of the researchers ability within the field of their study based on up-to-date information.

1) Right to withdraw
2) Informed consent
3) Deception
4) Protection from harm
5) Competence
6) Confidentiality
7) Privacy
8) Debrief

1) Informed consent
2) Right to withdraw
3) Debrief
4) Protection from harm
5) Deception

• Topics studied have social impacts due to their mostly sensitive nature

• It protects the researcher against scrutiny

• Protects the ppts from too much harm whereby it is greater than the benefit of research to society

• Greater trust of ppts in the researcher allowing larger number of ppts

• Socially sensitive topics are often worthwhile researching due to their importance however ethical guidelines can restrict and sometimes prevent an experiment altogether

• Following guidelines loses value and application of research

• When the cost to the ppt is lower than the benefit to society in a cost-benefit analysis

• The cost of the ppt is characterised as greater regardless when they experience long-term harm or death

1) Informed consent protects the researcher from complaints
2) If ppts are pressured then valid data will not be gathered
3) Competence increases the trust ppts place in researchers allowing them to experiment with more freedom and bigger samples

1) Demand characteristics from adhering to not deceiving ppts and gaining full informed consent
2) The benefit to society may be huge but the cost to the ppts is too great to carry out the experiment
3) Following the guidelines too much may result in useless and invalid data

1) No chance to deceive with informed consent so ppts will likely show DCs which will bias results
2) Limits research opportunities in certain topics such as obedience
3) Some groups are vulnerable and may see it as an obligation (e.g. prisoners as part of their sentence)

1) Presumptive consent as an alternative in which others give consent on behalf of the ppts
2) Prior general consent as an alternative which is telling the ppts that they may be misinformed but not when
3) Debriefing ppts at the end if they have not yet consented allowing them to withdraw if they want

1) May reduce data gathered if people want to withdraw
2) Not always possible to carry out a debrief
3) Might not be thorough enough

1) Should not take place if it will cause more harm to the ppt
2) There is evidence of debriefs being thorough (e.g. Milgram 1963 who provided follow up health checks)
3) Gathering the ppts data allows the researcher to contact the ppt to ensure a full debrief is given if not available at the time

1) Can limit research opportunities that may contribute to society
2) Prevents the study of socially sensitive topics that may benefit more than not doing it

1) Gain informed consent from the ppts
2) Debrief the ppts with follow up checks on their health
3) Pilot study to assess the cost to ppts and whether they may be short or long term

1) Ppts may show DCs if they aren’t deceived of the aim which renders the research pointless
2) Can’t study some areas of behaviour without deception (e.g. obedience)

1) Can limit data if people decide to withdraw causing lower generalisability
2) Limits research opportunities if topics are likely to cause withdrawal

1) Gain informed consent to reduce likelihood
2) Cause no harm to ppts to make them want to withdraw
3) Pre-assess ppts to select those most likely to carry out the experiment
4) Use a larger sample than is necessary to account for the loss

1) Guidelines followed
2) Guidelines broken
3) How does this affect the research?
4) Ways of making more ethical
5) How does this affect the research?
6) Cost-benefit analysis

1) Informed consent from the 72 volunteers from the ‘Applied Psychology Research Unit’ at Cambridge Uni - Low validity due to ppts being psychology students and so having knowledge of experiments and how they are carried out which may have led to DCs
2) Protection from harm due to nothing psychologically distressing occurring - High generalisability as less likely ppts will withdraw from the study gaining high sample

1) Deception as there was a surprise re-test of the word lists that ppts weren't informed about - High validity as it represents memory in real life in how information will be tested on accuracy without the person knowing

1) Gain prior general consent by telling ppts they will be misinformed but not when - therefore any psychological distress they may have felt during the surprise re-test will have been minimised due to the knowledge that deception was going to occur at some point

• There was no cost to ppts

• It benefited society with advice to students in that they should revise with mindmaps and revision cards that make semantic links due to LTM encoding being semantic instead of acoustic when re-reading notes as that is STM encoding

• Therefore the lack of ethical guidelines broken in the study justifies its research into memory

1) Presumptive consent - from parents - high validity as the boys were unaware of study so behaviour was natural
2) Debrief - with superordinate goal removing prejudice - high credibility as it showed that prejudice can be removed

1) Deception - the 22 11-year-old boys were unaware they were in a study - high validity due to their behaviour being natural from a lack of DCs
2) Protection from harm - boys got into verbal and physical fights - low generalisability as two boys withdrew in the first week

1) Reduce harm to ppts by implementing boundaries such as no physical aggression otherwise they leave the camp - Low validity as only ,mild verbal aggression won't truly reflect the severity of prejudice in real life
2) Gain informed consent from the boys - Low validity due to their knowledge of the study and its aims and so may show DCs being purposely prejudice or nice

• The cost to the 22 11-year-old boys was minimal as the verbal aggression didn't affect them much and the physical fights were stopped as soon as they started

• The benefit to society was large due to producing a solution to prejudice of two groups working towards a superordinate goal

• Therefore the ethics of this study was justified due to little harm caused with large benefits to society

1) Debriefing occurred for ppts in what the experiment would entail giving them the right to withdraw afterwards - High generalisability as it would limit the amount of people wanting to withdraw

1) Presumptive consent was gained for murderer's who weren't seen as fit to give it themselves by their lawyers instead of the murderer's themselves - Low validity as the ppts may feel obliged to participate and so their brain activity may not reflect true life if they are not comfortable
2) Right to withdraw compromised as ppts pleading NGRI agreed to have the PET scan as part of their court case - High validity as they would have been more willing to cooperate in the hopes it would reduce their sentence meaning their brain activity would have been ore normal
3) Protection from harm as ppts pleading NGRI were told to stop taking their medication 2 weeks prior to the study - High validity as this ensured their brain activity was not being influenced by foreign chemicals

1) Protection from harm using an fMRI scan instead of a PET scan due to their intrusive nature of an injection that is avoided with the measure of brain activity by blood flow - High reliability as they produce similar objective, quantitative images that can be analysed by multiple researchers and are scientific
2) Presumptive consent should be avoided as the ppts themselves will not have consented which may cause bias in the results if they are not fully willing - Low generalisability as sample size would have decreased

• Cost was minimal as no ppt suffered major health problems due to the lack of medication and the injection of a glucose tracker for the PET scan last a couple of seconds

• Benefit to society was large due to showing that murderers pleading NGRI have differences in their brains to non-murderers which may have caused them to act the way they did leading to reduced sentences due to lack of full accountability

• Therefore the experiment was justified due to no long-term effects on the ppts with larger benefits to society

1) Right to withdraw as Albert's mother withdrew him from the experiment before its end - Low validity as this meant that they were unable to see if the phobia could be unconditioned and so lacks credibility in suggesting it can
2) Protection from harm due to Albert being chosen as he wasn't easily frightened - High validity as his lack of fear was conditioned out of him when in the presence of a rat showing the success of the study

1) Protection from harm as they cause psychological distress to Albert when he jumped every time a loud noise was heard and crying in response to being shown a rat - High inter-rater reliability as 2 researchers were observing his behaviour and agreed on the cause
2) Debrief as they were unable to uncondition Albert's fear due to his mom withdrawing him too early due to lack of understanding - Low predictive validity as there is no evidence for the researchers to base their prediction of a fear being unconditioned

1) Detailed informed consent due to the assumption that the first consent was not that well informed because Albert's mother withdrew him from the study too early - High reliability as there would have been limited distractions to the full procedure of the study and no chance of variables from the environment affecting phobia
2) Debriefing could have been achievable if they contacted the mother and explained the need to uncondition the fear - High validity as it may have meant that the fear in Albert could still have been unconditioned making assumptions more credible

• Cost to Albert was quite big due to the distress caused and the phobia of rats created that was then generalised to other fluffy objects

• Benefit to society was huge due to the principles of classical conditioning demonstrating that if a fear can be conditioned it must be able to be unconditioned in the same way

• Therefore the experiment is overall justified due to Albert's phobia being distinguished a month later and treatments for phobias such as systematic desensitisation being formed

1) Presumptive consent gained from the owners of each of the 12 institutions - High generalisability as it allowed a wide variety of institutions to be represented
2) Protection from harm of the pseudo-patients as lawyers were on hand to remove any record of them having mental disorders as well as them being taught how not to swallow the medication - High reliability as they all followed the set instructions given due to the trust that there would be no repercussions for them

1) Deception as the staff of the institutions were unaware they were being studied - High ecological validity as they were studied in an environment natural to them so their behaviour would reflect that of real life
2) Informed consent from the staff due to their deception - High validity as their lack of knowledge would make their behaviour natural and free from DCs

1) Deception removed by gaining informed consent from all staff members so that their right to withdraw is also not compromised - Low validity as if the staff new they were being assessed they would not behave naturally and show DCs of much nicer attitudes towards patients

• Cost to real patients who didn't receive proper amount of treatment as a result of the pseudo-patients and real patients were unable to be admitted

• Benefit is large as it highlighted the poor conditions of institutions and the poor treatment of patients by staff with the overuse of medication

• Therefore it is justified as conditions have massively improved today with revisions of the DSM and ICD in diagnosing mental disorders to avoid misdiagnosis

To study behaviour in a controlled environment on an animal that won't show DCs and to avoid major harm to humans.

1) Housing and care
2) Anesthesia and euthanasia
3) Ethics and legislation
4) Number of animals used
5) Wild animals
6) Suppliers
7) Isolation and crowding
8) Reward and deprivation

1) Legislation
2) Housing and care
3) Pain and distress
4) Isolation and crowding
5) Number of animals

• Home Office Regulations state that researchers must have a project license by them that has specific conditions

• Failure to comply with the laws protecting animals can lead to prosecution

• Animals should be kept in the appropriate environment to what they are used to

• They should be fed the appropriate food in the correct moderation

• If researchers are planning deprivation studies they should consider the normal diet and feeding patterns of the species

• If the research involves administering pain to an animal the Home Office decides the extremity and regulation of the pain

• The researcher cannot cause suffering

• Surgery on animals can only be conducted by trained professionals

• Animals should be given time to recover and if they cannot, they should be euthanised humanely

• The researcher should understand the level of sociability of the species

• If they are social animals they should be housed with at least one other animal of its kind

• If they are not social animals they should be isolated appropriately

• Disturbance should be kept to a minimum as to not interfere with breeding cycles

• The Home Office will regulate the number of animals used

| - The number should be kept to a minimum with the correct species used for the type of research

• Bateson's cube of a cost benefit analysis

| - The 3 R's of replacement, reduction, refinement

Bio - Wagner's (1979) study about castrated rats in which she injected them with testosterone to assess aggression
Learning - Pavlov (1927) used dogs to condition a response of salivation to hearing the sound of a bell
Clinical - Lodge (1989) found that glutamate activity at NMDA receptors produces psychotic reactions in rats

SHOULD - Animals are very similar to humans due to evolving to match the same environments
SHOULD NOT - Humans are further along than animals due to their evolutionary discontinuity meaning there will be differences we can't compare