Animal Research

Specification

• Animal research and ethics

• The use of animals in laboratory experiments where results can be related to humans.

• Ethical issues regarding the use of animals in laboratory experiments, including the Scientific Procedures Act (1986) and Home Office Regulations.

WHY STUDY ANIMALS?

Animal studies are more properly known as “research involving non-human participants” and they play an important role in Psychology: from Pavlov’s dogs and Skinner’s rats to more recent studies involving the language abilities of apes, animals feature heavily in all the main approaches, but especially the Learning Approach.

A research method where animals are observed in their natural environment is known as ethology. Animal experiments involve manipulating some independent variable, either in the animal’s environment (like Pavlov and Skinner) or in the animal itself (eg by genetically altering it).

This research is based on evolutionary theory. This theory, originally proposed by Charles Darwin, states that humans are descended from animal ancestors – that humans are in fact animals. Moreover, humans retain many biological and psychological characteristics from their animal ancestors that they share in common with other animals with the same ancestors: the human family tree split from other apes about 7 million years ago.

• Rhesus monkeys share 93% of their genes with chimpanzees and humans and are preferred in research

• Mice share 90% of their genes with humans

The main advantage with animal experiments is that things can be done to animals that it would be impractical or unethical to do to humans. For example, animals can be bred to see what effects show up in their descendants; they can also be kept in a controlled environmentand observed for long periods, perhaps for their entire lives.

The principle disadvantage with animal experiments is the problem of generalisability. Even if we accept evolutionary psychology, humans have evolved to be very different from most other animals, perhaps all other animals. Drawing conclusions about human behaviour from observing animals might be invalid; at worst, it is reductionist and downright misleading.

• Even if animals are genetically similar to humans, they only share a genotype with us; they do not share a phenotype, which is a wider description of biology and environment. See the Brendgen et al. study into MZ and DZ twins for more on phenotypes.
  

ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS

The law governing the use of animals in scientific research is the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986. Research needs a licence from the Home Office; the premises must be licensed for animal research as must every individual involved in the research. Laboratory animals must be procured from “high quality suppliers” who comply with Home Office standards.

Based on the 1986 Act, the British Psychological Society (BPS) has published Guidelines for Psychologists Working with Animals (2012).

• Legal Requirements: Research must not break the law regarding endangered and protected species. This particularly restricts research involving great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans).

• Replacement: Where possible, live animals should be replaced with research alternatives, like videos and computer simulations. Animals should only be used as a last resort.

• Choice of Species: Species bred in captivity are ethically preferable to creatures taken from the wild; research should be minimised if it involves highly sentient (thinking, feeling) animals, like the great apes

• Reduction: The number of animals used should be minimised as much as possible; this involves carefully designed experiments and good use of statistics to get the maximum amount of data from the smallest number of animals

• Animal Care: When not being studied, animals must be housed, fed and watered in a suitable way as well as being given space and companionship appropriate to their species

• Disposal: When the research is over, animals should be disposed of humanely; ideally they should be kept alive for breeding or as pets

• Procedures: Animals must be treated humanely during research. The BPS gives special consideration to these three areas:

1. Caging: Distress should be minimised during caging; social species need companionship and animals unused to other animals may be distressed if caged with them

2. Deprivation: Some food deprivation is allowable (and may be normal and healthy for animals) but distress should be minimised

3. Pain: Anaesthetics should be used to minimise pain; animals should be given medical treatment after research; humane killing must be considered if suffering cannot be reduced

These Guidelines are based on a Cost-Benefit Model, which means that research which breaks some Guidelines sometimes might be allowable if the benefits seem to outweigh the "costs" in terms of animal suffering.

THE THREE Rs

The ethics of animal research are sometimes summed up by three principles known as the 3 Rs.

• Replace the use of animals with different techniques; virtual simulations on computers or studying videos of past research are recommended.

• Reduce the number of animals used to a minimum; in a well-designed study, the maximum data can be extracted from the minimal number of animals.

• Refine the way experiments are carried out, to make sure animals suffer as little as possible. This includes better housing and improvements which minimise pain and suffering.
  

THE BATESON DECISION-MAKING CUBE

Prof. Patrick Bateson (2012) has suggested a convenient way of weighing up ethical decisions about animals in research: the “decision cube”.

There are three “sides” to the cube.

1. The degree of animal suffering: ethical research minimises this

2. The benefits of the findings: ethical research will have clear benefits

3. The quality of the research: ethical research will be highly valid and reliable
   

Ideally, the cube should be as “hollow” as possible. Ethical research will be highly beneficial, high quality research with minimal suffering to the animals; on the other hand, painful, low quality research without clear benefits must be avoided.

Notice the use of the word “minimise” throughout this discussion. The BPS Guidelines do not take an absolute position on animal experiments. Research that inflicts suffering on animals should be minimised, but it may sometimes be justified if there is clear benefit to be had from it and the research is of the highest standard. It’s worth remembering that animals themselves may benefit from this research, with improvements to diet, conservation and veterinary treatment.

PRACTICAL ISSUES IN ANIMAL RESEARCH

Even if the ethical issues in conducting research on animals have been settled, there are practical issues to consider:

• Cost: Animals don’t have to be paid, unlike human participants. However, the cost of buying lab animals from a Home Office approved supplier can be considerable. Then there is the cost of feeding them and keeping their housing at the right temperature.

• Danger: Animals can bite and scratch and even lab-raised animals can carry diseases (indeed, research animals may be deliberately infected with diseases). This can be a danger to human researchers. Connected to this is the need to keep the research area clean and the animals free from stress that would make them aggressive.

• Space: Animals are typically small and take up less space than human participants. However, if they are to be given the space suitable to the needs of their species, so that they can maintain territory and feel secure, then much more room needs to be set aside for them.

• Supervision: Researchers can go home for the weekend and human participants can have “time off” but animals need to be cared for continuously, so someone has to visit them, feed and water them and possibly release them and interact with them for social time.

Evaluation

Strengths (in favour)

The Theory of Evolution is widely accepted by scientists. It clearly implies that we can learn from the behaviour of animals and draw conclusions about human behaviour. Denying this amounts to a rejection of Darwinian evolution, which few scientists are inclined to do.

There are practical advantages to such research. Animals can be controlled more exactly than humans and observed more continuously. Their lack of self-awareness reduces the likelihood of demand characteristics in experimental conditions. Their faster breeding cycles makes it possible to observe development in an experimental timeframe of days or weeks, rather than the years it would take for humans.

The 1986 Act and the BPS Guidelines ensure that animals are protected and only the most beneficial, high quality and humane research goes on. Research that satisfies the Bateson Cube decision-making process should be considered to be ethical.

From a certain ethical position, anything that maximises the benefit for the maximum number of creatures is ethically desirable. If more humans (and other animals) benefit from research than are harmed by it, this might be seen as ethical too.

Weaknesses (against)

The “animal rights” argument claims that animals have an absolute right not to be harmed or interfered with by us. It’s not enough to make research as humane as possible: it simply shouldn’t happen at all. This viewpoint rejects calculations about the benefit to the majority, the Bateson Cube decision-making process or any approach that tries to “minimise” rather than put a stop to harm to animals.

Another argument, put forward by Peter Singer (1975), is that it is wrong to do things to animals that we wouldn’t do to humans. This is what Singer calls “species-ism” and it is a type of discrimination, just like racism or sexism.

It is also argued that animals have different needs and perceptions from humans, so we cannot know to what extent they are suffering. This makes the Bateson decision-making cube and attempts to “minimise” harm impossible to carry out.

It is also argued that, in spite of our evolutionary similarities, we cannot generalise from animal experiments to humans because our thought processes and behaviours are simply too different. If this is true then all animal studies are “low quality research” and fail Bateson’s decision-making cube test.

Applications

There have been clear applications of animal research to human life. Jeffrey Gray (1991) argues “we owe a special duty to members of our own species” and if we can benefit humans by experimenting on animals, then this is our moral duty.

Examples would include Pavlov’s research into dogs which revealed the processes of Classical Conditioning and Skinner’s research into rats which explored Operant Conditioning. Both types of conditioning are used today to benefit humans, especially people suffering from phobias and addictions or people in prisons or psychiatric hospitals.

Pavlov’s research does seem inhumane in hindsight, because the dogs were restrained, deprived of stimulation and surgically altered to drain away their saliva and measure it.

Pavlov’s lab was essentially a physiology factory, and the dogs were his machines – Michael Specter (2014)

Pavlov also used 35 dogs, which sounds excessive, but that was over 25 years and he tested other things on them besides condition. His research was certainly of high quality and he received the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the benefits his research produced.

There is also the use of a white rat, a rabbit, a dog and a monkey in Watson & Rayner’s “Little Albert” study. These animals weren’t experimented on; they were just used as neutral stimuli for Albert. However, there were still issues with how they were procured and disposed of. (Presumably Watson got them from a local pet shop and returned them afterwards but his study doesn’t make this clear.)

Research into the language abilities of great apes has changed public perceptions of apes and may change their legal status. In 2014, an Argentinean court recognised an orang-utan named Sandra to be a “non-human person” who had been deprived of her freedom by Buenos Aires Zoo.

Past Paper Questions

• Describe one ethical issue that needs to be considered when using animals in psychological research. (2)

• Describe two ethical issues, using the Scientific Procedures Act (1986), regarding the use of animals in laboratory experiments. (4) June 2018

• Mateo needs to comply with Home Office Regulations to gain funding for his research. Discuss the ethical issues of the research that Mateo is conducting in relation to Home Office Regulations. You must refer to the context in your answer. (8) January 2020