Chapter 2: Psychological Research Methods & Statistics Notes

Ethics • In order for psychology to be taken seriously as a behavior science,

research & experiments are an essential part of the field.

• Before discussing what research looks like for this field, it is critical to review why research must be ETHICAL.

• Unfortunately, psychology is filled with tales of unethical research.

• Even as recent as the 1980s, psychological research was conducted in an unscrupulous manner.

• Thus, it is important to look at 3 events took place to radically change the way research standards were set.

Nuremberg Trials & Laws• one of the 1st major trials that alerted citizens of the

unethical way in which research was being completed on human subjects.

• due to this trial, human rights were set & standardized

• set the research standards with humans

Tuskegee Experiment • In 1932, the Public Health Administration gathered 400 poor

black men to study the effects of Syphilis.

• To participate in the study, the men were given free health insurance, burial money, and a small food allowance.

• These men were kept in the dark on all details of this trial.

• In fact, they were not even told that they had Syphilis, but were informed that they had “bad blood”.

• At the beginning of the experiment Syphilis was untreatable, but by 1947, penicillin was the well known treatment for Syphilis.

Tuskegee Experiment • Even with this knowledge, the scientists continued with the

experiment, and withheld the medication.

• In 1973, the NAACP filed a 9 million dollar lawsuit shedding light on the horrible nature of this experiment.

• While this lawsuit was settled, it was not until 1997 that a formal apology was issued by President Bill Clinton for this atrocity.

• Therefore, this experiment also helped set the standards for human subject research.

Milgram Experiment• completed at Yale University by Stanley Milgram who intended to

study obedience to authority (b/c of Nazis & Holocaust).

• began three months after the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials; therefore, ethical standards for research had NOT yet been set.

• In a room, there were numerous confederates (liars/actors) who pretended to be hooked up to a machine that would give them an electrical shock if they answered a question incorrectly.

• The “shocks” were never actually administered; however, the person controlling the “shocks” was unaware of this!

Milgram Experiment• They were instructed by a “head scientist” (also an

actor) to administer increasing levels of “shocks”.

• Most of the participants, would go to the highest level of shocks ignoring the “pain” of the men and women (the actors) receiving the “shocks”.

• This studied showed that people would rather submit to an authority figure, than be concerned/affected with human rights violations.

Milgram Experiment• The Milgram Shock Experiment raised questions about the

research ethics of scientific experimentation b/c of the extreme emotional stress and inflicted insight suffered by the participants.

• Because of this study, Institutional Review Boards (IRB) were created on University campuses.

• Any type of academic research, must first be approved by an IRB.

• They look at research proposals, and they help eliminate ethical violations and procedural errors.

American Psychological Association Standards

• Today, Human Research must meet the following APA standards (American Psychological Association) standards.

1. No coercion – Participation must be voluntary.

2. Informed Consent – Participants must know that they are involved in research and give their consent. If the participants are deceived in any way about the nature of the study, the deception must not be so extreme as to invalidate the informed consent. The research the participants thought they were consenting to must be similar enough to the actual study to give the informed consent meaning. Also, researchers must be very careful about the trauma deception may cause.

American Psychological Association Standards

3. Anonymity or confidentiality – Participants’ privacy must be protected. Their identities and actions must not be revealed by the researcher. Participants have anonymity when the researchers collect any data that enables them to match a person’s responses with his or her name. In some cases, such as interview studies, a researcher cannot promise anonymity but instead guarantees confidentiality, that the researcher will not identify the source of any of the data.

4. Risk – Participants cannot be placed at significant mental or physical risk. This consideration was highlighted by Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies in the 1970s in which participants thought they were causing significant harm or death to other participants.

American Psychological Association Standards

5. Debriefing

- After the study, participants must be told the purpose of the study and provided with ways to contact researchers about the results.

- This is a result of the Tuskegee Experiment because those men were never debriefed or given ways to cope with the experiment.

- When research does need to involve deception, it is particularly important to conduct a thorough debriefing.

What is Research?• Jane Goodall – Where research all began –

– became known worldwide with her work in Tanzania, Africa studying the chimps.

– completed a naturalistic observation with a longitudinal study for 30 years.

– followed the scientific method.

–Her research was influential in helping set the standards for completing ethical research in a wild environment.