Ethics

Brief history

Studies you should be aware ofGuidelines

1947 Nuremburg Code 1964 Helsinki Declaration 1971 US guidelines for SB research 1973 APA guidelines

http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx# 1979 Belmont report

Belmont Report

What is and isn’t “research”? Systematic Generalizable knowledge Vs. therapy/intervention

Basic principles—examples of violations of these? Respect for persons

Who should be protected? How? Beneficence Justice

How should risks and benefits be divided?

Consent

Process not documentWhat information should be in a consent

document?How should deception be handled? How do you know if people understand? How should protected groups be consented?When does it cross over into coercion, undue

influence, or unjustifiable pressure?What is the difference between benefits and

compensation?

Risk/benefit ratio

How should risks and benefits be balanced? What are potential risks/ benies? How should risks and benies be described? How is research design an ethical issue? What is the difference between benefits and

compensation?

Selection

How should participants be selected with an eye to justice?

Other consent issues

When do you need parental consent? What about child assent?What are the different ways in which consent

can be obtained? What should be used when? How can you get online consent?What about online consent with special

populations? How can you get parental consent?

What is the age of consent?

Federal Regulations

Looking at possible changesWhat things should IRBs be concerned with?

How?

Deception (Hertwig & Ortmann, 2008)

What is deception and what’s not? Is deception just a social psych thing? What if the study starts before participants think it

does? Is not telling the whole truth=deception? What are the arguments for and against deception

methodologically? Ethically?Is it decreasing? What types of deception are most common? (Table 1)Do people mind being deceived?

Kimmel, 1998 Fisher & Fyrberg, 1994

Deception

Does suspiciousness affect research? How can the suspiciousness be dealt with? Should it be banned? Limited? Have other criteria?Does research topic or type of population matter? What if they learn things about themselves they

didn’t want to know? How does the use of deception relate to intro psych

pools? What are the alternatives to deception?Can deception be used in online studies? How will

you know they are debriefed?

Windsor Deception Checklist (Pascual-Leone, Singh,& Scorboria, 2010)

1. justify use2. minimize degree of deception3. cite previous research using/justifying4. any possible risks overlooked?5. is it more than minimal risk? 6. does it involve therapy or other

clinical/diagnostic issues?7. return people to their previous state and

ask them to rate mood before they leave

8. make sure debriefing includes: Engagement of participant as collaborator Disclosure in plain language Rationale for deception Let p’s ask questions Provide resources in writing Confirm that they still want to be in the study

9. does debriefing occur immediately?10. when study is done, will people still see

the deception as a betrayal or unfair or leaving feeling bad?

Is it ever okay not to debrief? (Sommers & Miller, 2013)

APA—okay if “scientific or humane values justify delaying or withholding the information:

OHRP—”there is greater uncertainty over whether it is appropriate to debrief subjects when…[it] could …produce pain, stress, or anxiety”

IRBs—sometimes okay if a) would contaminate the pool; b) would be distressing; c) wouldn’t be practical

What is the purpose of debriefing? Is it okay not to debrief when

A) methodological concerns B) harms to debriefing

What might affect levels of harm? C) difficult or impractical ?

Should debriefing be described more in journals?

Debriefing

What are best practices? Engage participants

Funnel debriefing Tell what happened and why Let them ask questions Give resources Make sure they still want data included Do it right after the study Don’t just tell, show (Ross Lepper, etc. research) Restore to original mood Don’t make them feel stupid or fooled. Explain why people do

that and what it really means (address their distress) Ask them not to share, tell why ,and suggest what to say Consider having a “blind” debriefer

Online research

What are ethical issues (good or bad) with online research?

How can you keep children from participating? Those with cognitive disabilities?

How can you get parental permission? How can you ensure consent? How can you be sure they are who they say

they are?Does it work better for some topics than

others?

Emery, 2014

mTurk sampleGave feedbackWhat did they find about the feedback?What are their suggestions?

Online research (Moreno et al., 2013)

What is public? What is the website privacy policy? Is it okay to friend or follow people? What are strategies for debriefing online?Strategies for withdrawing from study, skipping

questions, withdrawing data? What about rewards? What about issues of scales and copyright? What are identifiers? What are data security issues?

Online research recommendations

Don’t use quotesPut your privacy policy on your websiteHave a professional page portraying your

researcher identityProvide contact info that people can access

right away

Abuse (Becker-Blease & Freyd, 2006)

New UNI policyConcern 1: IRB won’t let me

Does risk language in consent affect participation? Does it increase risk? Is it risky to ask?

2: I don’t know what to do Staff training Mandatory reporters

3: I have to report it Should it be reported? When?

4. Participants will drop out

Abuse

5. Will upset people They argue that research isn’t what usually leads to

memories. Most people reported immediately after that they

were not distressed. No one in one study reported an adverse reaction

6. It’s unethical to ask about stigma Health care people ask about abuse, so it’s like daily

life More willing to report having abortion than income Allow people to end surveys (*always should be able

to skip ? or drop out)

Abuse

7. Directly causes harm May be okay

8. Survivors aren’t able to assess risk. Shouldn’t imply that they are incompetent So how do you make it so people can say no?

9. No direct benefits 10. No costs to not asking

Abuse

If you do ask, what preparation do you need? When should abuse be asked about? How should you respond? Should the study

be anonymous or not?

Other issues

What happens to the control group?What about biological samples? Privacy issues? (Certificates of

Confidentiality)Issues of online consentShould the rules be different for medical

research and SBER?Are the ethical issues in terms of what we

study or don’t study? Or who we study?

Should Nazi research be used? What about no benefit or poorly designed

studies? What about paying people? How much should

they be paid? Are there other ethical issues that come up

frequently in psychology?

Sample studies—Would you approve?What issues do these bring up?

X wants to put up a fake wanted poster with a number to call to study the demographics of who calls to report having seen someone falsely.

Y wants to survey participants who have undergone a recent trauma online about their abuse experiences.

Z wants to ask children at school about how their parents punish them.

A wants to interview recent immigrants through a translator about their hopes for their children. One question is “What do you do when your child does something bad?”

Samples

B asks managers to tell their employees about her survey and hand it to them to complete and return to the researcher

C has people interact with a confederate in an online discussion about pictures of women. In some conditions, the confederate makes sexist comments about the women in the pictures (e.g., “when women dress like that, we know what they really want”)

Professor D hands out consent forms in class asking his students to give him permission to use their test scores in his research project.

Samples

E has women with a history of self-injury watch an emotionally upsetting video or a neutral video to see how they deal with stress

F recruits women who report that they are in abusive relationships. The researchers will call these women 5 times across 2 weeks to get measures of emotional state.

G does a study in conjunction with mysurveys.net, which advertises personality quizzes via facebook. G wants to look at how personality relates to facebook postings (people give mysurveys.net permission to access their facebook page when they use it)

Samples

H wants to do an online survey of attitudes and behaviors of people living in Thailand. The survey asks about what people think about the ruling family.