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“IN THE ZEAL TO LEARN ABOUT THE HUMAN THOUGHT PROCESS AND BEHAVIOR, MANY EARLY PSYCHIATRISTS WENT TOO FAR WITH THEIR EXPERIMENTATIONS, LEADING TO STRINGENT ETHICS CODES AND STANDARDS. THOUGH THESE ARE HIGHLY UNETHICAL EXPERIMENTS, IT SHOULD BE MENTIONED THAT THEY DID PAVE THE WAY TO INDUCT OUR CURRENT ETHICAL STANDARDS OF EXPERIMENTS, AND THAT SHOULD BE SEEN AS A POSITIVE” - LISTVERSE (UNETHICAL RESEARCH)
“IN THE ZEAL TO LEARN ABOUT THE HUMAN THOUGHT PROCESS AND BEHAVIOR, MANY EARLY PSYCHIATRISTS WENT TOO FAR WITH THEIR EXPERIMENTATIONS, LEADING TO STRINGENT ETHICS CODES AND STANDARDS. THOUGH THESE ARE HIGHLY UNETHICAL EXPERIMENTS, IT SHOULD BE MENTIONED THAT THEY DID PAVE THE WAY TO INDUCT OUR CURRENT ETHICAL STANDARDS OF EXPERIMENTS, AND THAT SHOULD BE SEEN AS A POSITIVE” - LISTVERSE (UNETHICAL RESEARCH)
In the UK, we adhere to the standards laid down by the British Psychological Society (BPS). BPS guidelines are updated regularly and help researchers stay on the right side of ethics by keeping their participants safe from harm - both physical and psychological
why?
why?
Nowadays ethics takes priority over knowledge but that hasn't always been the case. Without guidelines to keep researchers on the straight and narrow, experiments or studies conducted in the past have sometimes gone into morally sketchy or downright horrific territory. We'll take a quick tour of some of the most infamous unethical psychology experiments of the last century.
The Monster Study (1939)
...was a stuttering experiment performed on 22 orphan children in Davenport, Iowa in 1939. It turns out inducing a stutter (through negative speech therapy) is quite easy... getting rid of it on the other hand...
The Aversion Project (1970s / 80s)
South Africa’s apartheid army forced white lesbian and gay soldiers to undergo ‘sex-change’ operations in the 1970’s and the 1980’s, and submitted many to chemical castration, electric shock, and other unethical medical experiments. Although the exact number is not known, former apartheid army surgeons estimate that as many as 900 forced ‘sexual reassignment’ operations may have been performed between 1971 and 1989 at military hospitals, as part of a top-secret program to root out homosexuality from the service.
Head of the project (Dr Aubrey Levin) was sentenced to 5 years in prison in 2016 for various sexual offences
Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
In a disused basement of Stanford University, Zimbardo's infamous experiment showed just how susceptible we can be to social roles.
Experiments like those in the article above paved the way for a more responsible approach to research, one in which participant welfare (not knowledge) is the priority. Enter BPS Guidelines! The below is summary of some of the key guidelines researchers have to consider when planning their own studies.
Consent: Participants should be in full knowledge of what they are agreeing to do; this is called informed consent
Deception: Participants should not be deceived (there are exceptions)
Withdrawal: Participants should be informed of their right to withdraw from a study at any time (they don't need to give a reason)
Protection: Participants have the right to be safe and free from physical and mental harm
Confidentiality: All info about participants obtained during research is strictly confidential unless written permission is obtained in advance
Debriefing: Participants should be provided with full information about the research as soon as possible
Age: Participants under the age of 16 should be excluded from research without express consent from their legal guardian
Psst! In your assessment you are likely to come across a question asking you to explain an ethical guideline that should be considered in a specific research scenario. It's not enough to restate the above - you have to explain it.
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Read the article linked above (or any other resources you prefer) to find out about some of the most ethically sketchy research to take place within the world of psychology. Next, pick out three of the pieces of research discussed and for each, say which (there may be more than 1) ethical guideline was breached.
Imagine you are conducting research into the effect of loud noises on concentration. You plan to burst into a (primary) classroom with a cap gun and let of some shots at random. A secret video-camera placed in the class will record the reactions of the students and let you count how many people were distracted / looked up when you burst in. In reporting your findings, you plan to post a list of the 10 students who are most easily distracted.
Working through each of the guidelines, has the guideline been met? If not, how not?
What changes need to be made to make this an ethically sound piece of research?
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