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