Runaway Trolley• Listen to the story

and answer this question…

Would you pull a switch that sends a man to his death to saveFive others on a runaway trolley?

What is ethical… and who decides?

Ethics

What is the goal of psychological research?

★ Applied Research: Solve practical problems (best method for teaching someone to read)

★ Basic Research: Explores questions that are of interest in psychology, but may not generate immediate, real-world solutions. (studying how people form their attitudes about others in different cultures in terms of intelligence)

What guidelines do psychological experiments use to stay within ethical bounds?

There are hundreds of historical examples of ethically abhorrent research experiments

Is the case study of Tuskegee ethical?

• Why? Or Why not?

• What if it’s for the “greater good”? Think trolley!

APA Ethical Guidelines

Any type of academic research would need to be be proposed to the ethics board Institutional Review Board (IRB).

The board ultimately decides & gives researchers permission to do their research.

Animal Research1. Must have a clear scientific

purpose.2. Research must answer a

specific, important scientific question.

3. Animals chosen must be best-suited to answer the question at hand.

4. They must care for the animals in a humane way.

5. They must acquire animal subjects legally. Animals must be purchased from accredited companies. If wild animals must be used, they need to be trapped in a humane manner.

6. They must design experimental procedures that employ the least amount of suffering feasible.

Human ResearchEthical research involving human subjects

must meet the following requirements. 1) No coercion2) Informed consent3) Anonymity or confidentiality4) Risk5) Debriefing

"Human behavior is under situational control more than we imagine or want to believe and admit." - Philip Zimbardo

1. No Coercion★ No Coercion: Participants must know that they

are involved in research and give their consent. ★ Limited deception: 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.

★ Participation is voluntary.

2. 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.

3. Anonymity or Confidentiality★ Participants’ privacy must be protected. Their identities and

actions must not be revealed by the researcher. ★ No data matched with person’s name.★ If an ‘interview study’ could not guarantee perfect

anonymity, it should guarantee confidentiality. Researcher will not identify the source of the data.

4. Risk★ Participants cannot be placed at significant mental or physical risk. Typically, it is considered permissible for participants to experience temporary discomfort or stress but activities that might cause someone long-term mental or physical harm must be avoided.

★ This clause requires interpretation by the review board.

★ This consideration was highlighted by Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies in the 1970s in which participants thought they were causing significant harm to other participants (Social Psych chapter).

5. Debriefing

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

★ When research involves deception, it is particularly important to conduct a thorough debriefing.

Self-fulfilling prophecy/Experimenter Bias

• Act a particular way based on some expectation

– Ex. Psychic reading– Experimenter Bias-

hypothesis– Can you think of any

examples from your life that you’ve applied this concept?

Single and double-blind experiments

• Single blind experiment-

research participants do not know (are

blind to) the expected outcome of

the experiment.

Single and double-blind experiments

• Double blind experiment-

both the researcher and the research participants

do not know (are blind to) the expected outcome of

the experiment

Placebo Effect• Placebo- a “sugar pill”

• Placebo effect- simply believing that something will work causes it to work

– Ex. Alcohol/no alcohol

– Can including a placebo in an experiment ever be beneficial for the experimenter?

Do you think that sometimes unethical experiments benefit

society?

Ethics in Psychological Research

Questions you should consider:

What happens when you put good people in an evil place?

Does humanity win over evil or does

evil triumph?

Write down five pieces of information you learned about

the Stanford Prison Experiment (or the Milgram Study)

through the video.

Explain your answer.

Genie

• What are 3 tests that were performed on Genie?

• How did Genie react to the tests?• What about the treatment of Genie shocked

you?• What would you have done differently if you

had come across a child in Genie’s situation?