Week 3 ethical concerns in research

Protecting human subject

No harm to participants

Voluntary participation

Anonymity & confidentiality

No deception

Duty or report

Legal liability

Special problem

Voluntary participants

Participación must be voluntary

Voluntary Participation may threatens generalizability

Informed consent

Anonymity

When researchers cannot identify a given piece of information with a given person

Confidentiality

A researcher can link information w a subject but promises not to do so publicly

Anonymity & confidentiality techniques

Researchers must avoid identifying research subject

Replace names / address w IDs ,

Specify that information will not disclosed to 3rd Parties, etc

No harm to participants

• We need to balance benefits against possible harm.

• Possible harm may be justified by potential benefits of study. it is still somewhat arbitrary

• Psychological harm may occur Rememberance of unpleasant or traumatic experience

• ex: collecting information from active criminals presents possibility of violence against them

No deception

Deceiving subject is generally considered unethical

Sometimes it is useful & even necessary to identify yourself as a researcher

Duty to report

Researchers have ethical obligation to scientific community

To make short comings / or negative findings known

Tell the truth pitfalls & problems you’ve experience

Do not sweep under the rug

Legal liability

Researchers may expose themselves to criminal liability by:

• failing to report observed criminal activity to the police

• Engaging in participant observation studies where crimes are committed

• Subpoenas violate confidentiality

• Legal immunity

Social problems

Becoming aware of staff misbehavior in agencies

Research can cause crime or influence it’s location or target

Withholding desirable treatments from control group

Mandatory reporting ; the federal child abuse prevention

Codes of professional ethics

The national research act - signed into law after a few highly publicized examples of unethical practices in medical and social science research

The Belmont report a brief, but comprehensive set of ethical principles for protecting human subject

The Belmont report

Respect for persons : make their own decisons

Beneficence do not harm and produce benefits

Justice: benefits and burdens should be distributed fairly

Informed consent, assessment of risk and benefits and selection of subject

Institutional review boards

Government agencies and non government organizations conducting research must establish institutional review boards

• responsibility

• Determine overall risks and their acceptance

• Determine whether research produces includes to protect safety confidentiality and general welfare of subject

Informed consent and special population

Informed consent

Subject have the capacity to understand

Subject do understand the research, risk, side effects, benefits to subject and produces used

Special populations: specific regulations exist for certain populations such as prisoners and juveniles

Obedience to authority

Stanley milgram experiment

Volunteer subject: teachers

Confederate: sudents / learners

Pushinment ; electric shocks ranging from minor to danger

Only verbal request to “continue” the experiment when subjects resisted wanted to discontinue

Stanford prison experiment

Dispositional hypothesis prisons are brutal and dehumanizing because of people in them

Situational hypothesis prison environment creates brutal and dehumanizing conditions independent of the people in them

Prison was constructed in basement of psychological building

24 healthy normal subjects offered 15$ a day for their participation

Signed a contract and they would be confined out under constant surveillance and have civil right suspended but would not be subject to physical abuse

The experiment was dime after 6 days

Subject displayed unexpected intense reactions

5 had to be released because of acute depression And anxiety

guards became aggressive prisoners became passive

Group therapy after follows up

Trouble in the tearoom

Laud Humphreys studied homosexual acts btw strangers who meet in public restroom in parks

Served as “watch queen”

Noted plate # of participations tracked down names address through police conducted a survey to obtain personal infro at their home