Ethical Conduct in Psychological

Research
Week 3
9/23 & 9/25
Ch. 3

Much of the information © McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

 Ethical Standards
• Ethical Standards
• APA Ethics Code
– Applies to all psychologists (including students)
– Ethical standards for
• Research
• Therapy
• Teaching
• Administration
– Solve ethical dilemmas
 Ethical Responsibilities
• Carry out research in a “competent” manner
• Report results accurately
• Manage research resources accurately
• Acknowledge those who contributed ideas or time
and effort
• Consider consequences to society
• Speak out publicly on societal concerns related to
the scientist’s knowledge/expertise
– (Diener & Crandall, 1978)
 Five Principles for Ethical
Conduct
• Beneficience
• Fidelity
• Integrity
• Justice
• Respect for people’s rights and dignity
 Five Principles for Ethical
Conduct
American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical
principles of psychologists and code of conduct. American
Psychologist, 57, 33–38.
• Beneficence and nonmalificence
“Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take
care to do no harm.”
• Fidelity and responsibility
“Psychologists establish relationships of trust with those with whom
they work. They are aware of their professional and scientific
responsibilities to society and to the specific communities in which
they work.”
 Five Principles for Ethical
Conduct
• Integrity
“Psychologists seek to promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness
in science, teaching, and practice of psychology.”
• Justice
“Psychologists recognize that fairness and justice entitle all persons
to access to and benefit from the contributions of psychology and
to equal quality in the processes, procedures, and services being
conducted by psychologists.”
• Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity
“Psychologists respect the dignity and worth of all people, and the
rights of individuals to privacy, confidentiality, and self-
determination.”
 Steps for Ethical Research
• Before conducting research
• Institutional Review Board (IRB)
– Protect rights and welfare of human participants
– Some institutions also have a Local Review Board
(LRB)
• Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
(IACUC)
– Protects rights and welfare of animal subjects
– Care and housing of animals
 Steps for Ethical Research
continued...
• Risk/Benefit Ratio
• Subjective evaluation
• Costs and benefits of a research project
– Participants
– Society
– The researcher and institution
• Questions
– Is the research worth it?
– Are the benefits greater than the risks?
– Will the study produce valid and interpretable results?
 Determining risk
• Risk
• Different types
– Physical injury
– Psychological injury (mental or emotional stress)
– Social injury (e.g., embarrassment)
– Ethical obligation to protect participants from all forms
of risk!
• Minimal Risk:
– Harm or discomfort is not greater than what that
experienced in daily life or during routine physical or
psychological tests
– Minimal risk differs across participants
 “At Risk”
• When the possibility of injury is more than
“minimal risk”
• When participants are “at risk”or “at minimal
risk,” the psychologist has a duty to protect them
– Explore alternative methods with lower risk
– Descriptive/observational vs. experimental
– Make participants’ responses anonymous or
confidential
– Have clinical psychologist on hand
 Steps for Ethical Research
continued...
• Confidentiality
• Social risk
• “Confidential” ≠ “Anonymous”
• Anonymous
– Do not ask for names or identifying information
• To increase confidentiality
– Remove identifying information
– Report results in terms of statistical averages
• Internet research
– Confidentiality is a special problem
• Confidentiality should be present across all disciplines
(e.g., HIPPA)
 Steps for Ethical Research
continued...
• Informed Consent
• A social contract
• Make clear to participants:
– Nature of the research (what they will do)
– Possible risks
• Written informed consent
– Required when risk is greater than minimal
– Not required when researchers observe public behavior
 Steps for Ethical Research
continued...
• Informed consent requires
– Inform participants of all aspects of research that May
influence their decision to participate
– Allow to withdraw at any time without penalty
– No pressure to participate
• Some unable to provide legal consent
– Young children, mentally impaired
• Provide assent to participate
– Legal guardians’ consent
• Informed consent can be difficult with Internet
research
 Steps for Ethical Research
continued...
• Privacy
– The right of individuals to decide what information about them is
communicated to others
– Discuss how information will be kept confidential to participants
• Public or private behavior?
• Three dimensions
– Sensitivity of the information
• More sensitive → more private (e.g., sexual practices)
– Setting
• Public settings → less private (e.g., concerts, college campus)
– Method of dissemination of the information
• Sensitive information → more protection (e.g., group averages)
 Deception
• Deception
– Information is withheld from participants (omission)
– Participants are intentionally misinformed about aspects of the
research (commission)
• Deception for the purpose of getting people to participate is
always unethical!
• Pros and Cons
• Pros: Why deceive?
– Allows study of people’s natural behavior
– Opportunity to investigate behavior and mental processes not easily
studied without deception
• Cons: Why should we not deceive?
– Contradicts principle of informed consent
– Relationship between researcher and participant is not open and
honest
– Frequent deception makes people suspicious about research and
psychology
 Deception continued...
• Deception is justified only when
– The study is very important
– No other methods are available
– Deception is not “noxious”
– Deception would not influence decision to
participate
• When deception is used, participants must
be “debriefed”
 Debriefing
• What is debriefing?
• After the experiment, the researcher
– Informs participants of the reason for deception
– Discusses any misconceptions
– Removes any harmful effects
– Educates the participant about their role in the study
and gets them to feel more personally involved
– Goal: participants should feel good about the
research experience
– Debriefing is good for the participant and the
researcher
– Can be difficult with internet research
 Steps for Ethical Decision
Making
1. Find out the facts
– Procedure, participants, etc.
2. Identify the relevant ethical issues
– Risk, informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, deception,
debriefing
3. Decide what is at stake for all parties
– Participants, researchers, institutions, society
4. Identify alternative methods, procedures
– Consider ethical implications for each alternative
5. Decide on the action to be taken
– Approve research
– Conditional approval with modifications
– Possibly do not approve research
• When in doubt, consult the APA Ethics Code and consult
with colleagues!!!
 Reporting Scientific Research
• Scientific research is presented to and published
by peer reviewed scientific journals
– This is how we disseminate information
• Must meet methodological and ethical criteria
• Must be appropriate to the journal submitted to
– e.g., you would not submit a study about cognitions
involved in learning word problems to a clinical
psychology journal
• Follows a particular, set style (i.e., APA style)
– Problems in these areas will most likely result in
rejection of study
 Reporting Scientific Research
continued...
• Plagiarism
– Don’t present substantial portions or elements
of another’s work as your own.
– “Substantial portion or element” can be 1–2
words if it represents a key idea
– Ignorance or sloppiness are not legitimate
excuses
– Cite sources appropriately
– Primary vs. secondary sources
 Plagiarism
Example of a Correctly Cited Direct Quote
• “Informed by developments in case law, the police
use various methods of interrogation—including
the presentation of false evidence (e.g., fake
polygraph, fingerprints, or other forensic test
results; staged eyewitness identification), appeals
to God and religion, feigned friendship, and the
use of prison informants” (Kassin & Kiechel,
1996, p. 125).
– Kassin, S. M., & Kiechel, K. L. (1996). The social psychology of false
confessions: Compliance, internalization, and confabulation.
Psychological Science, 7, 125–128.
 Plagiarism continued...
• Example of Plagiarism (no citation accompanying
paraphrased material)
– Research investigations of deceptive interrogation methods to
extract confessions are important because police use false evidence
(e.g., fake test results) and false witnesses when interrogating
suspects. Interrogators also pressure suspects by pretending to be
their friends.
• Example of Paraphrased Material with Correct Citation
– Research investigations of deception interrogation methods to
extract confessions are important because police use false evidence
(e.g., fake test results) and false witnesses when interrogating
suspects (Kassin & Kiechel, 1996). Kassin and Kiechel state that
interrogators pressure suspects by pretending to be their friends.
 Reporting Scientific Research
continued...
• Publication Credit
– Many studies have numerous authors or
contributors
– Acknowledge fairly those who contributed to a
research project
– Authorship based on scholarly importance of
contributions-- order of publication credit
• Unethical to not give credit to contributors
as well as giving undeserved credit
 Ethical Exercises- Is Risk
Present?
• College students complete an adjective
checklist to describe their current mood.
The researcher seeks to identify depressed
students so they can be included in a study
that examines cognitive deficits associated
with depression.
 Is Risk Present?
• A psychologist administers a battery of
achievement tests to elderly adults in the
dayroom of a nursing facility. The
psychologist seeks to determine if there is a
decline in mental functioning with
advancing age.
 Is Risk Present?
• Students in a psychology research methods
class witness another student enter their
classroom in the middle of the class period,
speak loudly and angrily with the instructor,
and then leave. As part of a study on
eyewitness behavior, the students are then
asked to describe the intruder.
 Is Risk Present?
• A researcher recruits students from
introductory psychology classes to
participate in a study of the effects of
alcohol on cognitive functioning. The
experiment requires that some students
drink 2 ounces of alcohol (mixed with
orange juice) before performing a computer
game.
 Ethical Exercises... IRB
Committee
• Assume you are a member of an Institutional
Review Board (IRB). The following is a summary
of a research proposal that has been submitted to
the IRB for review. You are asked to consider
what questions you might want to ask the
investigator and whether you would approve
carrying out the study at your institution in its
present form, whether modification should be
made before approval, or whether the proposal
should not be approved.
 Ethical Exercises- IRB
The proposed study seeks to identify the personality factors associated with
cheating behaviors in college students. Participants will be students enrolled in
two different sections of introductory psychology at a local university.
Students will complete a personality test during the first week of the course.
Two situations will be created to give students an opportunity to cheat.
Situation 1 will be the first examination in the course, an hour-long multiple-
choice test. Students will be allowed to grade their own test in the following
class period, unaware that the examination will have been already graded and
recorded by the professor. Situation 2 will be the second examination in the
course, an essay test. A week in advance, students will be given a list of five
questions and told that two of the questions will be on the exam. Examination
booklets will be made available prior to the exam “for practice”.� At the time
of the test, the examination booklets distributed by the instructor will be
unobtrusively marked so that any student substituting a “practice booklet”�
will be detected.
After the data are collected in the two situations, students will be told about the
research study and those students who cheated will be asked to take a make-up
examination. Data analysis will consist of trying to determine which
personality variables best predict the incidence of cheating.
 Ethical Exercises- IRB
• What ethical issues are relevant in this proposal?
• What are the possible consequences (risks and benefits)
of this research for:
• The participants
• The instructor/researcher
• Other students
• Other instructors
• Society?
• What alternative methods exist for conducting this
research? What are the ethical consequences of these
methods? What are the ethical consequences for not doing
this research?
• As an IRB member, would you consent to this research?
Would you ask for any modifications of the research
proposal?
 Ethical Group Exercise
• Please get into groups of 4
– Please read the scenario on page 1 of the handout
• What ethical issues are relevant in this proposal?
• What are the possible consequences (risks and
benefits) of this research for: (a) the participants; (b)
the researcher; (d) other psychologists; (e) society?
• What alternative methods exist for conducting this
research? What are the ethical consequences of these
methods? What are the ethical consequences for not
doing this research?
• As an IRB member, would you consent to this
research? Would you ask for any modifications of the
research proposal?
 Ethical Group Exercise
continued...
• Now read the second scenario as a group
• Do you believe the student should be an
author on the article or should their
contribution be noted as a footnote in the
article? Why?
• If the student should be an author, should
they be first or second author?