[LEC] EXPERI Mod 2-4

PSY116: [LEC] EXPERIMENTAL PSCYHOLOGY

MOD 2: RESEARCH ETHICS

“ON BEING SANE IN INSANE PLACES”

-               Eight people without mental illness got themselves admitted to psychiatric institutions.

·       ROSENHAN wanted to see whether mental health professionals could actually distinguish between psychologically well people and those with mental illnesses.

“ASCH CONFORMITY EXPERIMENT”

Group Pressure and Conformity

·       SOLOMON ASCH

-               Actors pick the wrong line and then people are coerced by conformity to pick something they know is wrong.

o    Conformity – adjusting one’s behavior of thinking to coincide with a group standard.

·       Alone – less than 1% made mistake

·       In Groups – wrong 33% of the time.

“THE BYSTANDER EFFECT”

-               Inhibiting influence of the presence of others on a person’s willingness to help someone in need.

·       Research has shown that, even in an emergency, a bystander is less likely to extend help when they are in the real/imagined presence of others than when they are alone.

-               Became a subject of significant interest following the brutal murder of American woman Kitty Genovese (1964).

>       Retuning home late from work, was viciously attacked & sexually assaulted by a man w/ knife while walking home to her apartment complex from a nearby parking lot.

“MILGRAM OBEDIENCE EXPERIMENT”

·       1960, STANLEY MILGRAM conducted his iconic “shock experiments.”

-               An “experimenter” instructed each participant to give an unseen person in an adjacent room electric shocks of increasing severity via a control panel. The participants were told that the experiment was testing the effect of punishment on learning. They heard screams of pain in an apparent response to their actions, although in reality, no one was being hurt.

o    MILGRAM was fascinated by how far participants would follow inhumane instructions of the experimenter.

·       His results suggested that many people would be prepared to do terrible things if someone in authority told them to.

“THE MONSTER STUDY”

-               A stuttering experiment performed on 22 orphan children in Iowa (1939).

·       WENDELL JOHNSON, with they help of his graduate student MARY TUDOR

RESEARCH ETHICS (ethos)

-               Framework of values within which we conduct research.

·       Ethics help researchers identify actions we consider good or bad.

-               Explain the principles by which we make responsible decisions in actual situations.

APA CODE (1953)

Informed consent, confidentiality, deception right to withdraw, risk vs. benefit.

·       Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

-               Composed of laypeople and researchers, evaluate research proposals to make sure that they follow ethical standards.

INFORMED CONSENT

-               A subject or guardian agrees in writing to the subject's participation after relevant details of the experiment have been explained.

o    This description may include risks and benefits, but does not extend to deception or the hypothesis.

o    Consent may only be given by individuals who have reached the legal age of consent.

CONSENTING is a process where the researcher clearly communicates the risks and benefits of the study, the voluntary nature of participation in the study, and the expectations from the subject if they agree to participate in the study.

ASSENT

-               Used to express willingness to participate in research by persons who are too young to give informed consent but are old enough to understand the proposed research in general.

-               is the agreement of someone not able to give legal consent to participate in the activity.

CONFIDENTIALITY

-               that data are securely stored and only used for the purpose explained to the subject.

·       ANONIMITY – subjects are not identified through name.

Researchers achieve anonymity by collecting data without names and assigning code numbers.

They achieve confidentiality by storing data in a locked safe and  only using data for the purposes explained to participants.

DECEPTION

-               May be used when it is the best way to obtain information.

-               May not be used to minimize participants’ perception of risk or exaggerate their perception of potential benefits.

CONFEDERATE

-               Is an experimenter’s accomplice.

·       Use of a confederate is deceptive because subjects are led to believe that they are another subject, experimenter, or bystander, when they are actually part of the experimental manipulation.

FULL DISCLOSURE

-               Means explaining the true nature and purpose of the study to the subject at the end of their participation or at the completion of the entire experiment.

RIGHT TO WITHDRAW

-               Right of a participant to refuse to be in the study or discontinue participation.

Ethical researchers, therefore, cannot coerce participants to agree to be in the study or prevent participants from discontinuing the study.

DEBRIEFING

-               Experimenter discloses the true nature and purpose of the study to the subject and solicit subjects’ questions at the end of the experiment.

RISK vs. BENEFIT

Studies that place subjects at risk increase the chance of harm compared with not participating in the study.

·       MINIMAL RISK STUDIES do not increase likelihood of injury.

HOW do PSYCHOLOGISTS PROTECT the WELFARE of ANIMAL SUBJECTS?

ANIMAL RIGHTS – is the position that sensate species (those that can feel pain and suffer) have equal value and rights to humans.

ANIMAL WELFARE – is the human care and treatment of animals.

WHAT MOTIVATES FRAUD?

SCIENTIFIC FRAUD

-               Involves falsifying or fabricating data.

A researcher’s graduation, tenure, promotion, funding, or reputation may motivate researchers to commit fraud.

COMPETITION by colleagues for scarce resources, while a cause of fraud, is the third line of defense.

PLAGIARISM

-               Misrepresenting someone’s “ideas, words, or written works” as your own.

-               A form of fraud, in which an individual claims false credit for ANOTHER’S ideas, words, or written work.

AUTHORSHIP CREDIT should only be given to those who made a major contribution to the research or writing.

Researchers should not take credit for the same research more than once.

The ETHICAL SOLUTION: cite original publications when republishing data in a journal article or republishing articles in an edited volume.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN LINES OF DEFENSE AGAINST FRAUD?

1.          PEER REVIEW – process filters submitted manuscripts so the only 15-20% of articles are printed.

2.          REPLICATION – where researchers attempt to reproduce findings of others, is the second line of defense.

ETHICAL VIOLATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY PRACTICES

MOD 3-4: ALTERNATIVES TO EXPERIMENTATION: NON-EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

3: SURVEY & INTERVIEW; Non-experimental Designs

SURVEY RESEARCH obtains data about opinions, attitudes, preferences, and behaviors using questionnaires or interviews.

The survey approach allows researchers to study private experience, which cannot be directly observed.

·       The data we tap are things we don’t see, literally. hidden. covert. These are only reported by participants themselves.

>       e.g., their perceptions, opinions, moods,

         attitudes towards something, etc.

·       Diff. from products of observation

-               We gather data easily seen by our eyes.

>       What move they exhibit, behaviors, ho many

          times they do a thing.

LIMITATIONS

1.          The survey approach does not allow us to test hypotheses about causal relationships.

-               You cannot establish a causal rs.

2.          We are not able to manipulate independent variables and control extraneous variables.

-               No iv manipulation. The iv we test are already existing. Participants lang imemeasure. But we don’t control the iv.

-               The types of confounding and extraneous variables, we cannot actively control or manipulate them na di sila makakaapekto.

>       but there are stat tools that can try to lessen the effects. Pero it’s not as precise as expe.

MAJOR STEPS in CONSTRUCTING SURVEYS

1.          Identify specific research objectives.

-              When we do science, our motive/objectives should be specific. Hindi yung nagttry lang kung ano magwowork.

-              Sometimes, when we’re confident w our data and we’ve read the literature for it and whatnot, we can identify the direction  that our data will have.

-              Being specific comes to a point na we predict what kind of directions our variables have – DIRECTIVE HYPOTHESIS.

2.          Decide on the degree of imposition of units (degree of response restriction/manipulation).

-              Varies from low to high. 

·       In survey: we only have low degree of imposition

–       degree of manipulation we can do to an IV.

·       In expe: we have high imposition. We have higher control.

3.          Decide how you will analyze the survey data.

·       At the beginning of the research, it should be clear to us how to analyze data.

-               Di pwedeng kung kalian meron nang data, doon palang iisipin paano ianalyze.

-               This has something to do with the stat analysis we need to be doing.

o   If corre: correlational. If test of difference: ttest, etc etc. objectives should match type of analysis.

MAJOR QUESTION TYPES

CLOSED: options are readily available to the participants. There is a limit. Control. This control means there is a high imposition of units.

OPEN: the answers are not readily available to the participants. Its something they need to reflect or reminisce on. Low control.

ANALYZING DATA from EACH QUESTION TYPE

·       The number or % of responses can be reported for closed questions.

·       Open-ended questions can be analyzed using content analysis— in which responses are assigned to categories using objective rules.

closed: usu. numbers or percentages.

-               can describe the avg, std, the measurements of the figures.

-               inferential stats that we can run

open: data gathered can be analyzed through content analysis— analyze data in words, paragraphs, narratives. different from computations sa closed.

-               we label, identify, group, and describe the theme.

-               rigorous process of identifying codes, categorizing them, and then formulating themes for them.

THREE (3) CONCERNS when CONSTRUCTING QUESTIONS:

·       1.) There are tendencies na we use highfalutin words

       that the participants wont understand.

       Avoid using big words that wont be understood by

       the participants. esp in psych with the psych terms

2.)   Ambiguous–  lots of diff understanding or interpretation in certain terms.

>       e.g. do you exercise regularly? regularly is

          ambiguous. regularly could mean once a

          week, once a day, 3 times a week -> should be

         “how many times do you exercise a week.”

3.)   There are questions phrased na may literal na double negative. Could be confusing to other participants.

·       Double Barreled: having two aspects.

·       Exhaustive: malawak. extensive.

MEASURING RESPONSES

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS for SURVEY ITEMS

1.          RESPONSE STYLES are tendencies to respond to questions or items without regard to their actual writing.

-               People differ in their willingness to answer, position preference, and yea/nay-saying

2.          MANIFEST CONTENT is the plain meaning of the words printed on the page.

-               Surface meaning.

3.          LATENT CONTENT is the hidden or disguised meanings, wishes, and ideas beneath the manifest content of any utterance or other form of communication.

-               Beneath the surface. Not readily avail. Deeper meaning

4.          WILLINGNESS TO ANSWER is the tendency to guess or omit items when unsure.

-               If willing: seseryosohin.

RESPONSE BIASES

·       The SOCIAL DESIRABILITY response set is representing ourselves in a socially appropriate fashion when responding to a question’s latent content (underlying meaning).

·       MALINGERING or FAKING BAD happens when respondents might sometimes try to exaggerate the psychological problems.

>       e.g., in some applied testing contexts, test takers

         may be motivated to appear more cognitively

         impaired or psychologically disturbed than they

         truly are.

·       MODERATE or NEUTRAL RESPONSE BIAS happens when some people will choose a response somewhere in the middle to avoid making a strong claim.

·       POSITION PREFERENCE is selecting an answer based on its position.

·       ACQUIESCENCE BIAS occurs when an individual agrees with statements without regard for the meaning of those statements.

>       e.g., an inventory may have items such as “I enjoy

         my job” and “I dislike my job.” In its extreme form,

         people with acquiescence will respond strongly

         agree to both of these items even though they are

         polar opposites of the same construct.

·       CONTEXT EFFECTS are changes in question interpretations due to the question position/order.

-              This problem is esp. likely when two questions are related and not separated by buffer items— unrelated questions.

4: ALTERNATIVES TO EXPERIMENTATION; Non-experimental Designs

INTERVIEW – a qualitive research technique which involves asking open-ended questions to converse respondents and collect elicit data about a subject.

DATA COLLECTION

POPULATION consists of all people, animals, or objects that share at least one characteristic

PROBABILITY SAMPLING

NON-PROBABILITY SAMPLING