ethics in psychological research?
consider the following example of research and identify any breaches of the research code of ethics. explain ethical breaches in the context of this example.
An academic psychologist wanted to investigate the effects of three days of sleep deprivation on fine motor tasks (fine motor tasks are actions that use the small movements created by the small muscles in the fingers)
the psychologist proposed to test this by using a computer game where the participants of both the control group (who slept as normal) and the experimental group (who stayed awake) played the game every three hours.
the psychologist asked for volunteers, but when there were none, he resorted to coercing his 3rd year uni students, saying that if they did not participate, they would fail. of the 30 students in the class, 25 then said they would participate.
the psychologist told them that once the experiment started the students would have to stay until the end and complete it. after which, they would be permitted to drive home.
At the conclusion of the experiment, the psychologist did not share the findings with the students and some students displayed negative symptoms such as anxiety, headaches and excessive crying for two weeks.
The psychologist also told the participants that the results were to be published with their names in the next months psychology lecturers bulletin and when one person objected he said “Too bad!”
balqees a said,
Wrote on December 6, 2010 @ 9:27 am
i don’t have particular knowledge in this, but i think coercion and publishing the results with the students’ names are the obvious ones.
flemon99 said,
Wrote on December 6, 2010 @ 9:35 am
1. Participation should always be voluntary, people should not be coerced into participation. It is sometimes acceptable to supply monetary compensation (or course credit or whatever) to encourage sign up, but participants should not face the threat of consequences for not taking part.
2. Participants should have the right to withdraw at any time they wish, they cannot be told that they have to stay till the end.
3. Participants should not be exposed to any (unnecessary) physical or mental harm. Allowing sleep deprived participants to drive home is probably out.
4. Participant consent should be informed, they should be made aware of any potential risks (the anxiety, headaches etc.), and where appropriate, be supplied with someone to contact if these symptoms arise.
5. Participants have the right to confidentiality and anonymity. Identifying information should not be revealed to anyone outside of the study, and it is unethical to identify them by name (or any thing else that could be used to identify them) in reports/presentations.
6. Similar to before, participants have the right to withdraw at *any* time, this includes their data being excluded after the experiment has been completed. If a participant objects to you using their data (prior to publishing, not much you can do about it afterwards), you have to comply.