Deck 20: Social Responsibility and Ethics in Social Research

Question 1

Some participants may require more than a basic explanation of the deception they were exposed to in a study. What are two techniques or strategies that can be used to help alleviate or address their concerns?

Answer 1

No Answer.

Question 2

(a) What is an Institutional Review Board, (b) what is it composed of, and (c) what is its purpose?

Answer 2

No Answer.

Question 3

What are two arguments for the use of deception in scientific research, and two arguments against deception, of any kind, in research?

Answer 3

No Answer.

Question 4

(a) Provide two research situation examples where a debriefing would be extremely necessary, and two examples where a debriefing is likely unnecessary - be sure to explain why a debriefing would be necessary or unnecessary for each of the four examples. (b) Is debriefing ever a bad idea? Explain why or why not.

Question 5

"Enlightenment effects" refer to the idea that people may respond or behave differently after learning about psychological concepts, effects, or procedures (i.e., after they become "enlightened" about their behavior or someone else's behavior). (a) How is this related to deception? (b) When might enlightenment effects pose a major threat to the reliability and validity of scientific research?

Question 6

If federal guidelines dictate that participants provide informed consent before participating, how do we accomplish this with observational field research (where participants may not even know they are "participating?" In other words, under what conditions is it currently appropriate to not obtain informed consent from participants? Explain your reasoning, and provide two examples where consent might not be necessary to obtain.

Question 7

The Internet offers many new opportunities to conduct observational research (that may not require informed consent). However, not all online studies or experiments are excused from obtaining informed consent from participants prior to their participation. Provide two examples of online studies where consent would not be required, and two examples of online studies where participants' consent would be required. Be sure to explain why those examples would or would not require participants' consent.

Question 8

Provide one scientific (i.e., pertaining to the methodology of a study, or to the reliability and validity of results) and one ethical reason for why ensuring participants' confidentiality is important. Be sure to explain why they are scientific and ethical reasons for ensuring confidentiality.

Question 9

Provide examples of two situations that would call for a thorough IRB review. Explain why a full IRB review would be necessary for these examples.

Question 10

(a) What is one argument in favor of IRBs reviewing the methodological quality of a research endeavor, beyond basic assessments of participant protection, justification for the project, and qualifications of the experimenters involved? (b) What is one argument against IRBs reviewing the methodological quality of research proposals?

Question 11

Besides the blatantly obvious examples of ethical violations, what are some of the "routine" practices that scientists engage in that might be considered ethically dubious if information about these practices is omitted in publications? (a) Provide two examples where "routine" practices are ethically questionable when scientists do not mention that they used those practices. (b) Explain why failing to mention some research practices could be considered scientifically or ethically questionable?

Question 12

The Association of Psychological Science (APS) has implemented new data disclosure rules for all manuscript submissions, including: (a) that all excluded observations and the reasons for exclusion be reported; (b) that all independent variables or manipulations, as well as dependent variables used in the study, be reported; and (c) that information on how the final sample size was obtained be reported. Explain the ethical justifications for these guidelines, and how these guidelines have broader implications for how scientists conduct research.

Question 13

Why is outside funding (e.g., from a private cooperation or organization) a concern for the ethics of scientific research? What sort of conflicts may be introduced when science is funded by private organizations?

Question 14

Why have some scientists argued that racial or ethnic differences should be off-limits from scientific research (or at least reporting ethnic/racial differences should be off-limits)? Provide one argument in favor of this proposal, and one argument against this proposal. (b) Provide one example for when publishing findings on racial or ethnic differences may be irresponsible or ethically questionable, and one example for when not publishing findings of these differences may be irresponsible or ethically questionable.

Question 15

What is informed consent, and why is it important?

Question 16

What are some solutions to the ethical problem of deception?

Question 17

Were the "obedience studies" of Stanley Milgram ethically justifiable? Why?

Question 18

Discuss the practice of "debriefing" human participants. Is it always required? Is it always a good thing?

Question 19

You conducted a study that investigated whether people's moral beliefs made them more likely to engage in helping behavior when a person is in need; therefore, you measured behavioral intent (i.e., how likely would you be to help a person in this situation). In providing informed consent, participants were informed that they would be completing a survey that asked about their general beliefs and how they think they would respond in certain situations. After completing those items, participants were told that the study was finished and they were thanked for their time. After the ostensible completion of the study, as participants left the laboratory building they all encountered a confederate in need of help. Participants' behavioral response (helping or not, and in what way) to the confederate in need was recorded as the participants' final data point.
Can you use this behavioral measure in your analyses (the way the scenario is currently described) - why or why not? Since the participants' behavior occurred in a public place (outside the laboratory building), does the participant need to provide informed consent, or is it considered "in the public domain?" Does the informed consent participants initially provided include permission to use their behavior as data in your research? If your answers to any of these questions is "no," what could you do to make that behavioral data useable?

Question 20

You conducted a longitudinal study of teenagers' alcohol and substance use behaviors, including data regarding their use of illicit drugs. In the informed consent form, you acknowledged (both in writing and verbally to each participant) that there is always a remote possibility that the information they provide could be seen, intentionally or unintentionally, by people who are not involved with the research project; e.g., if there was a fire in the laboratory building, and rather than burn up all of participants' responses, all of your paper-and-pencil data was strewn across the grounds outside of the building. Because it was a longitudinal study, you had a record of participants' names and their corresponding ID numbers, but kept that record in a separate locked file cabinet in a different part of the lab relative to participants' data. However, after the fire, the document with participants' names and ID numbers fell in the same place as participants' data. Then, before you could collect all of the documents, some were stolen, including the document with the names and IDs, along with some participants' data. Should you contact those participants to tell them what happened? Should you just hope that there are no catastrophic consequences for those participants? What else could or should you do? What are your ethical obligations to participants?

Question 21

Currently, some countries do not require IRB approval before you can conduct research with human participants, nor do these countries have any sort of review entities that are equivalent to an Institutional Review Board. At a recent conference, a fellow researcher suggested you consider conducting research in one such country (i.e., Methodia [a fictional country used for the sake of argument]), to avoid the overly burdensome and excessive red tape of your institution's IRB. Technically, this would not violate federal guidelines for participant protections if you did not represent yourself as a member of your home institution - so you decide to do it. What are the ethical implications of such a practice? Is what you are doing ethical - why or why not? How might this impact the process and integrity of conducting research in the US and at your home institution, both for yourself and for other researchers?