ethical implications and social sensitivity - issues and debates

Whats an ethical issue - ethical guidelines

• ethical guidelines were established to protect the pts in research

• An ethical issue arises when there’s conflict between what a researcher wants to do, or is doing, and the rights and protection of pts

• Steps can be taken to reduce / overcome such ethical issues but sometimes this is referred to as an ethical dilemma

• Ethical guidelines : consent, deception, confidentiality, debrief, right to withdrawal and protection from harm

Wider ethical implications - considerations and questions asked

• ethical implications refers to the impact that psych research may have in terms of : rights of people participating and on the wider society like influencing of public policy, way certain social groups are treated such as research may lead to discrimination or perception of certain groups

• before conducting research researchers should ask - could the findings be used to support prejudiced or discriminatory attitudes and behaviour? And could the findings cause harm to pts themselves or people similar to pts?

• What may seem as a very innocent research project could end up having far reaching social consequences = socially sensitive

Avoiding conducting socially sensitive research

• APA reported the ethical committees approved 95% of non sensitive proposals that didnt include ethical problems whereas ‘sensitive’ proposals were only approved 50% of the time

• Can lead to certain issues within society become ‘taboo’ if they remain under investigated

Examples of social sensitivity

• fallon - neuroscientist that discovered that individuals who demonstrate psychopathic personality traits display low patterns of brain activity in their frontal lobes

• Schizophrenogenic mother - theory popular in psychiatry and clinical psych for a long time that individuals with SZ often have mothers whose behaviours contradictory and unpredictable - these mothers thought to play a role in development of SZ in their children

• Milgram’s obedience study - conducted exps on obedience and found these factors affected obedience: location, proximity of authority figure, whether figure wore uniform or not

Who decides if research should be conducted - BPS guidelines and issues with them

• researchers need to consider how they’ll conduct their research

• Consider whether they should conduct it

• Funding bodies like universities will have a major role in this , if they dont agree with the research = wont fund it so research wont happen

• Academics who sit on these boards may spot potential consequences that they researcher has failed to spot

• BPS have a stringent set of ethical guidelines designed to protect all people / animals involved in research process

• Guidelines regularly viewed and amended

• Some argue guidelines too stringent and prevent some helpful research like Milgram’s and ZImbardos research isn’t likely to have passed ethical guidelines today

How to deal with socially sensitive research

• carefully consider what potential implications could be and discuss w colleagues

• Brief pts about implications

• Ensure fully informed consent from pts once they have been made aware of potential implications

• Give pts the right to withdrawal from research any time

• Protect identity of pts

• Publish with discretion and perhaps a carefully worded introduction

Sieber and Stanley’s research process

• research q: simply asking research q may be damaging to members of a particular group as it appears to add scientific credibility to prevailing prejudice like questioning which nationality has the highest IQ - knowledge could easily be abused

• Conduct of research and treatment of pts: researcher needs to consider treatment of pts and right to respect and confidentiality

• Institutional context: the researcher should be mindful of how the data’s going to be used and consider who’s funding the research

• Interpretation and application of findings: finally, the researcher needs to consider how their findings might be interpreted and applied in the real world

Ao3 - wider impact of research should be considered before begins to reduce no. Of unethical pieces of research

• socially sensitive research can have implications for whole groups of people that didnt even take part = psychologists need to not only protect pts in research but also of the wider indirect impact the research can have, this awareness can help reduce negative consequences but some findings cannot always be accurately predicted = issues still likely to arise

• E.g one theory in psychiatry was that individuals w SZ often have mothers whose behaviour = unpredictable = thought to play a role in development of SZ in their children

Ao3 - cost benefit analysis can help reveal long term benefit of socially sensitive research

• can be argued a lot of our understanding of behaviour comes from research deemed unethical

• ‘Unethical’ research needs to have its contribution to this understanding examined -benefits of research need to be weighed up alongside costs

• Summarise zimbardo or Milgram

• Implies socially sensitive research benefits society at large

Ao3 - school of thought we shouldn’t shy away from sensitive research

• just because it’s socially sensitive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be conducted

• Aronson states psychs have a social responsibility to conduct socially sensitive research i.e how and what is researched that matters

• Elaborate - why it may be important to do offensive pieces of research

• Hence many believe psychs have a duty to investigate socially sensitive issues