Ethical Challenges in Empirical Research

What are the ethical challenges that psychologists face when undertaking empirical research? Use previous research to highlight some of the issues faced and the solutions that have been developed to address these issues.

Psychologists have to consider an array of ethical factors including deception, harm to participants, gaining consent and confidentiality in empirical research. Attention to ethical challenges in psychology research has increased exponentially since the ‘Second World War, then in the 1960s’ Sinclair (2017, p.20) suggesting the increased importance of correct ethical conduct to psychologists. Despite there being ethical guidelines set out by both the British Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association, there is an abundance of research which may be deemed as unethical. However, there is a clear improvement in ethical consideration when comparing earlier and more recent research.

Between 1920 and 1940, Watson and Raynor’s Little Albert study (1920) was deemed particularly unethical. This experiment aimed to investigate developments of Pavlov’s (1902) theory of classical conditioning; the possibilities of inducing fear of a formerly neutral stimulus, whether fear will be transferred to similar objects, the effects of time on fear responses and the possibilities of eliminating this fear in a lab. An important guideline Watson and Raynor (1920) were unsuccessful in following was protecting their participant from harm which is critical in avoiding any long-term damage, mental or physical, on participants. Banyard and Grayson (2008, p.275) propose that the researchers ‘intentionally caused their subject, a very young infant, to become distressed’. As well as causing Little Albert psychological suffering during the study, Watson and Raynor did not manage to decondition the fears they had imposed on him, meaning long term harm was probable. Due to the age of the subject, fully informed consent was impossible. When research involves young participants, it is important to gain ‘guardian informed consent’ (Gossard 2018), however, it is unknown whether Little Albert’s mother provided this. Schoeman (2012, p.358) suggests that ‘if valid informed consent is attained, an added psychological benefit will be obtained’. When questioning how this study was approved, it became clear that, at the time, ethical guidelines in psychology were non-existent. In Sinclair’s (2017, p.22) research into the attention given to ethics in literature, she states that ‘none of the [19^th-century] articles addressed the possible need for ethics education or training, or the need for codes or guidelines’.

Between 1960 and 1980, two studies ‘had a strong influence on the direction of [psychology’s] ethics journey’ (Sinclair 2017, p.23). These studies are Milgram’s study on obedience (1963) and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (1971), both received much criticism for their lack of ethical practice. Milgram’s study aimed to investigate compliance with requests, presented as commands, from a perceived person of authority to determine whether significant differences between Nazi soldiers and normal people existed. The experiment did not evidence this but also failed to follow three significant ethical guidelines; protecting participants from harm, using deceit, and not ensuring participants knew they had the right to withdraw. A large number of participants showed high levels of stress during the experiment including ‘trembling, sweating, stuttering [and] laughing nervously’ (McLeod 2007). Deception was also evident in this study as Milgram misinformed participants of its aims. Sinclair (2017, p.23) states that ‘the purpose of the study was disguised; the ‘learner’ was a confederate and was not actually being shocked’. Researchers often used deception to avoid demand characteristics affecting the results of their work, however, any deception used should not cause participants distress which, in this case, it did. Another error in Milgram’s ethical processes was failing to inform participants of their right to withdraw, evident through direct instructions given to participants of “the experiment requires you to continue” and “you have no choice you must go on” from a confederate. Despite these ethical issues, all participants were debriefed properly, and the research was approved by the American Psychological Association.

Zimbardo’s (1971) planned 14-day long study which aimed to investigate identification, in this case, in a mock prison environment. Zimbardo analysed the effects of internal dispositional and external situational factors on observed behaviour. Zimbardo failed to follow the ‘protection from harm for both the ‘prisoners’ and the ‘guards’’ (Sinclair 2017, p.23) ethical guideline. In this study, the participant’s basic civil rights, such as the right to privacy, were temporarily suspended for the duration of the experiment. Despite the study ending after 6 days, the ‘prisoners’ still encountered a substantial number of hostilities, including being denied bathroom rights and being made to clean toilets with their hands, among other inhumane activities. The conditions in the study caused participants serious discomfort; one prisoner felt such high levels of apprehension they developed a psychosomatic rash and had to leave. Zimbardo also failed to provide participants with the right to withdraw. The prisoners were offered the chance of ‘parole’ but only if they forfeited any money which they received from participating in the study. Zimbardo even attempted to block an escape by relocating prisoners to an actual prison. Despite these deviations from appropriate ethical conduct, Zimbardo’s study was approved by both the United States Navy and the Psychology Department at Stanford University. This could be due to the idea that, as Handelsman (2003, p.342) addresses, ethical codes ‘provide the ethical floor, but not the ceiling’ implying that one document cannot cover in depth an all-inclusive professional morality.

Comparing this past research with a recent study; the BBC Prison Experiment (2001), there is a significant difference in attention to ethics. This experiment aimed to answer two questions; ‘when do people go along with oppressive groups?’ and ‘when do people act as a group to challenge oppression?’ (Haslam and Reicher 2008). Despite the conditions of this experiment being challenging at times, multiple measures were put in place to ensure no long-lasting damage for participants and to guarantee the study would not be criticised for being unethical. Differently to previous studies, in particular Zimbardo’s, ‘the study was constantly monitored by members of a five-person independent ethics panel’ (Haslam and Reicher 2008). Other measures included two clinical psychologists, paramedics and security guards being either present or on call at all times. Also ‘participants went through a three-phase clinical, medical and background screening’ (Banyard and Grayson 2008, p.76) to ensure they were suitable and a ‘comprehensive’ (Banyard and Grayson 2008) consent form was signed by all participants. By putting these methods in place, the researchers ‘do not put their own self-interests or those of their discipline above their higher duty of care to those involved’ (Sinclair 2017, p.25), indicating that participants wellbeing is, or should be, the most important factor for researchers. Safeguards put in place in this study show the development of solutions to address ethical issues in research and the importance of maintaining appropriate conduct which ensures both scientific benefit and participants’ wellbeing are attended to.

In conclusion, it is evident that, over time, the ethical issues psychologists face when conducting research have become of more importance and solutions have been established to ensure that research being carried out is as ethical as possible. Despite this, Hobbs (1948, p.80) identified the inadequacy of ethical codes given the ‘impressive range of activities’ in psychological research. (Fisher 2003) reinforces this by stating no ethical guidelines will be able to keep up with the continuous developments within ‘constantly changing sociocultural, economic, political, and legal landscape[s]’ (Fisher 2003 p.6) within the field of psychology.

References

• Banyard, P. and Grayson, A., 2008. Introducing Psychological Research. 3^rd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Fisher, C., 2003. Decoding the Ethics Code: A Practical Guide for Psychologists. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, pp.3-17.
• Gossard, D., 2018. On the Ethics of John Watson’s “Little Albert” Experiments. Medium [online blog], 21 January. Available at: https://medium.com/@BlakeGossard/on-the-ethics-of-john-watsons-little-albert-experiments-e60f75dd4737 [Accessed 14 Jan 2019].
• Haslam, A. and Reicher, S., 2008. The BBC Prison Experiment [online]. s.l.: s.n. Available at: http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/index.php [Accessed 11 January 2019]
• Hobbs, N., 1948. The development of a code of ethical standards for psychology. American Psychologist, 3(3), pp.80-84.
• Kuther, T., 2003. Promoting Positive Ethics: An Interview with Mitchell M. Handelsman. Teaching of Psychology, 30(4), pp.339-343.
• McLeod, S., 2007. The Milgram Experiment [online]. s.l.: Simply Psychology. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/simplypsychology.org-milgram.pdf [Accessed 11 January 2019].
• Schoeman, L., 2012. Psychology and ethics serving humanity: The role of informed consent. International Journal of Psychology, 47(1), p.358.
• Sinclair, C., 2017. Ethics in psychology: Recalling the past, acknowledging the present, and looking to the future. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 58(1), pp.20-29.