Ethical Research: Little Albert and Well of Despair

Ethics is needed for psychology experiments to make sure that it will not bring any harm to the participants. Ethics has six main rules to unsure that the experiment stays in the ethical guide lines. The rules of Ethics are; Informed consent (Making sure that all the participants are able to give consent themselves or an appropriate person can give consent, the Experimenter must also give all the information including potential benefits, consciences, and if deception might be used), Debrief (once the experiment concludes the participants should be allowed to talk about the experiment, and any findings with the experimenter), Protection of the participants (There should be no harm coming to anyone undergoing the procedure, that harm could be psychological, physical or morally), Deception (The participants should not be deceived, if deception is needed you must tell the participants that deception might be used), Confidentiality (No information about the participants is allowed to be released, unless they have given full consent, but if the participant shows that they might hurt themselves or others the researcher is obligated to report to the appropriate authorities), and Withdrawal from an Investigation (Participants are allowed to withdraw at any time even if payment has been made). The importance of the rules is to make sure that the experiment stays ethical, and does not bring any harm to the Participants. The examples of breach of ethics that this essay is looking at are The Little Albert, and The Well of Despair experiments.

Little Albert was an experiment were they took a nine-month old baby who had not shown any fear to rats. The experimenter (John Watson) had put a rat onto a table that was in front of Albert, Albert had not shown any reaction. John Watson would then make loud noises every time he put the rat near Albert, Albert being young would be startled by the loud noise so then he would begin to cry. after obviously associating the loud noise with the rat would start crying even if no noise was made. The unethical aspects of the Little Albert experiment were; Protection of the participants, as most babies are hurt by loud noises this experiment brought harm to him, Informed consent, Little Albert was too young to understand so he would never have been able to give proper informed consent, Withdrawal from an Investigation, Little Albert only being 9-months-old most likely didn’t know how to withdraw.

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Little Albert could be considered Ethical if Albert was older, and understood what was happening to him, also if the parents could have been able to watch what was happening and decide whether they wanted to withdraw him from the experiment.

The Well of Despair was an experiment conducted by Harry Harlow, he wanted to know what love was so he tested using a baby Rhuses monkeys. In the experiment he would take the babies away from their mothers and place them in a pit for a year after birth, if not for a whole year they would be completely cut off from other monkeys regularly. The monkeys in this experiment became good models of depression (Neuravinci, 2015, Manic Monday: Harlow’s Pit of Despair, the Rape Rack and Iron Maidens, Viewed February 28, 2017, https://neuravinci.com/2015/01/05/manic-monday-harlows-pit-of-despair-the-rape-rack-and-iron-maidens/). Harlow wrote, “One of six monkeys isolated for three months refused to eat after release and died five days later, the effects of six months of total social isolation were so devastating and debilitating that we had assumed initially that twelve months of isolation would not produce any additional decrement. This assumption proved to be false; twelve months of isolation almost obliterated the animals socially (Dodsworth, R.O, Harlow, H.F & Harlow, M.K, 1965, ‘Total Social Isolation in Monkeys*’, Department of Psychology Primate Laboratory and Regional Primate, 28 April, pp 90-97).

Unethical aspects are informed consent, the monkeys were not in a state to give consent they were to young and did not understand what was happening to them, Protection of participants, in this case the participants are the baby monkeys, they were taken away from their mother and in some cases had not seen another monkey in months, this caused the participants mental harm.

This cannot be ethical as the monkeys never felt that they were in a safe position, but also never had a zoologist or veterinary present to stop the experiment at any time.

Ethics should be followed when conducting an experiment such as these one you should follow the rules of ethics to make sure the participants do not encounter and harm, the rules of ethics are Informed consent (Making sure that all the participants are able to give consent themselves or an appropriate person can give consent, the Experimenter must also give all the information including presentational benefits, consciences, and if deception might be used), Debrief (once the experiment concludes the participants should be allowed to talk about the experiment, and any findings with the experimenter), Protection of the participants (There should be no harm coming to anyone undergoing the procedure, that harm could be psychological, physical or morally), Deception (The participants should not be deceived, if deception is needed you must tell the participants that deception might be used), Confidentiality (No information about the participants is allowed to be released, unless they have given full consent, but if the participant shows that they might hurt themselves or others the researcher is obligated to report to the appropriate authorities), and Withdrawal from an Investigation (Participants are allowed to withdraw at any time even if payment has been made).

References

McLeod, S. A. (2015). Psychology Research Ethics, [Online] Available: www.simplypsychology.org/Ethics.html, [Accessed 2017, February 24]

Dodsworth, R.O, Harlow, H.F & Harlow, M.K, 1965, ‘Total Social Isolation in Monkeys*’, Department of Psychology Primate Laboratory and Regional Primate, 28 April, pp

Neuravinci, 2015, Manic Monday: Harlow’s Pit of Despair, the Rape Rack and Iron Maidens, Viewed February 28, 2017, https://neuravinci.com/2015/01/05/manic-monday-harlows-pit-of-despair-the-rape-rack-and-iron-maidens/