Unethical Experiments

Milgram

Aim: to investigate whether individuals would obey authority figures

Ethical issues:

• Milligram was used- participants believed that they were shocking a real person, however Milgram argued that this would help eliminate response and participant bias- leading to more reliable and value results
• Participants were not protected- they were exposed to very stressful situations which could have potentially led to psychological harm. Miligram argued that the participants would be debriefed and that their stress levels would decrease 
• Debriefing- this was successfully done and it was ensured that no participants were exposed to any real psychological or physiological harm
• Right to withdraw- this was permitted however not enforced; participants were pressured to:

Please continue.
The experiment requires that you continue.
It is absolutely essential that you continue.
You have no other choice, you must go on.

Little Albert 

Aim: to see how possible it is to remove the fear response in the laboratory.

Ethical issues:

• Little Albert was not protected from psychological harm; a fear was forced upon him
• Confidentiality was successful- Little Albert was not his real name; his identity remained hidden 
• Lack of informed consent- Little Albert's parents did not know what their 9 month old son would suffer form in the future
• Right to withdraw- this was permitted and his mother removed from the hospital, however this meant that the negative effects that he gained were not removed

--- this experiment was very useful for psychologists as it helped them gain a better understanding on how phobias could be learnt 

Asch 

Aim: to investigate whether perceived group pressure by a majority can influence a minority in an experimental set up that is not ambiguous

Ethical issues:

• Participants were not protected form psychological stress and pressure which could have occurred if they decided to disagree with the others
• Deception was used- Asch told the volunteers that they were taking part in a 'vision' test to avoid response bias; Asch argued that this was neccessary to produce value results 

Zimbardo 

Aim: To investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.

Ethical issues:

• Lack of informed consent- experimenter himself did not know what would happen in the experiment. participants did not 'agree' to be 'arrested' at home
• Prisoners were not protected from psychological harm (they were put between real prisoners), Zimbardo stated that emotional distress could not be predicted prior to the experiment 
• Participants were debriefed at the end of the experiment 

Overall, the experimenters always argue that unethical experiments lead to more reliable and valid results and they always seem to find an excuse for ethical considerations that were not followed

Psychology & TOK

•Reason

Can we assume that human beings are rational animals?

Many people tend to mix up one's intelligence with one's logic and reason towards a certain subject(rationality), so lets break down both of these terms:
Rationality: having an argument that is backed up with some type of evidence (scientific or study-based)
Intelligence: based one one's knowledge and how they think and if they have a given 'gift'
Rationality can be argued to be environmental based whereas intelligence can be believed to be genetically based
Intelligence tests measure important aspects of our minds, however they don not measure how rationally we think, therefore we can not link one to the other, as this would be very imprecise and inaccurate

•Emotion

How can a social scientist avoid becoming emotionally involved?

Experimenters are expected to be as objective as they can be to avoid a any bias in the experiment (participant bias, response bias or any type of bias), but how can they do that? Aren't they normal humans with feelings just like us?
There are actually a number of feature that must be taken into account; some of these are:

• Their work must be checked by another individual- to see if the interpretations of situations are different or similar
• They must be detached from what they are studying, if it is a case study, they must not form a close relationship with the person they are studying to avoid subjective interpretations 

Ethics

•How do ethical factors limit experiments?

Ethics nowadays are believed to be somehow strict, this is to avoid any harm and danger, this is positive aspect, however the negative aspect is they limit our ability to collect explicit data that could possible harm an individual or an animal.

•Language:

Can questionnaire be written in a neutral language?

Many questionnaires these days are argued to have misleading questions which lead to response bias and research bias, which can eventually lead to a collection of invalid and unreliable results.
Misleading Question: Do you hate/love your little brother?
Neutral Question: How do you feel about your little brother?

Loftus and Palmer conducted a study in 1974 which aimed to investigate how the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter our memory and they aimed to show that leading questions will distort one's eyewitness testimony 
 They asked participants "About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed / collided /
bumped / hit / contacted) each other?”
the verb 'smash' received a prediction of the highest speed, this is because it is a very violent verb that makes one visualise a situation worse than what it might of actually been.

To what extent do the knowledge claims of the social sciences apply across different historical periods and cultures?

Overtime, the ethical considerations of experiments and studies have changed; for example in the 1970s experimenters had the ability to conduct very unethical experiments, however over the years the APA (For America) and BPS (for the UK) put out a list of ethical considerations that must be taken into account before any experiment is permitted to take place; for humans these are:

• protection of participants- participants should be protected from physical and mental harm and distress 
• informed consent- participants must be informed of the true aims of the study before giving full consent 
• the right to withdraw- participants can leave the experiment at any time
• confidentiality-data collected should remain hidden and must not be shared with others without permission
• avoid deception- (should be avoided but is needed at times)- if its used, informed consent is not obtained and must be revealed at the earliest opportunity  
• debriefing- findings of research should be available to participants and deception must be justified and revealed