Deck 2: The Ethical Imperative

Question 1

Discuss two historical changes to ethics and how they provided more guidelines for researchers.

Answer 1

Answers may vary based on student selection.
Declaration of Helsinki: made distinctions between therapeutic and non-therapeutic clinical studies and also broadened the Nuremberg Code of 1947 to address the role of doctors in safeguarding the health of the people.
Formulation of the clinical research committee: this committee became the prototype of the current IRB. This committee was one of the first to begin overseeing research by modifying and approving them

Question 2

Discuss one example for why ethical issues in research are not necessarily straightforward.

Answer 2

Can doctors recruit their patients? This may seem ethical as doctors are saving their patients. However, if the research they are asking their patients to participate in has elements of risks, the power differential between the doctor and patient may compromise the voluntary aspect of research. Are patients able to truly give informed consent? This remains unclear. Doctors may also have a vested interest if they are being hired by private companies to conduct research on specific drugs or treatments. For this reason, ethics in research can be gray and context-dependent. The same behavior may be ethical in some cases, but not in others.

Question 3

Discuss two merits of animal research.

Answer 3

Animal models can provide more controlled environments and experiments to help further understand certain mechanisms in different contexts. For example, we learn a lot about the effects of impoverished environments by studying animals.
Animal models also allow for better study of lifespan development. For example, researchers interested in the complex interaction between genetics and environment in the lifespan can study how different genes passed on manifests themselves in an array of different environments.

Question 4

Discuss two changes to the review process that researchers are suggesting for IRB reform.

Question 5

Outline the roles of the IRB and why it is important. Identify a current issue with the role of the IRB.

Question 6

The onus for maintaining the bond of trust between the researcher and society lies on…

A) the researcher.
B) federal and state regulatory boards.
C) the university or company where the researcher works.
D) both the researcher and society.

Question 7

Which of the following is not a general principle included in the Belmont Report?

A) Researchers should protect the autonomy of participants, obtain their informed consent, and treat them with courtesy.
B) Researchers are obliged to do no harm and at the same time to maximize the study's potential benefits.
C) There should be fair administration of carefully considered procedures and non-exploitative selection of participants, so that people of all races, ethnicities and incomes can benefit from research.
D) There should be fair and sufficient compensation of participants' time and resources spent on undergoing the study.

Question 8

Which of the following describes a major ethical problem from Milgram's famous experiments?

A) The experiment caused serious distress to some participants.
B) A confederate was used.
C) The researcher conducted the experiment in a white lab coat.
D) The researcher did not seek approval from the IRB to conduct the study.

Question 9

Which of the following is true about cross-cultural research?

A) It can be challenging due to the same strict ethical guidelines that researchers have to adhere to in every country.
B) It is not as difficult as it seems because ethics is overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Services.
C) It is challenging because different cultures have differing interpretations of the Belmont Report.
D) It can be challenging because of different ethical standards and the lack of an Institutional Review Board in some other cultures.

Question 10

The Tuskegee syphilis study had several implications for ethics in research. Which of the following is the best description for the damage that it inflicted to society?

A) Men involved in the study were not properly consented and the rewards from participation were overly coercive.
B) The study did not yield beneficial results that balanced the risks the men faced.
C) The study destroyed doctor-patient trust in certain populations because effective treatments were withheld.
D) The study did not clearly define whether it was for general knowledge and scientific inquiry, or if it was for treatment purposes.

Question 11

Which one of the following descriptions of ethics in research is most accurate?

A) What can be considered ethical or unethical is generally very clear-cut and straightforward.
B) Even by abiding to the law, your actions can be unethical.
C) Although ethics training is highly recommended at all universities within the United States, only about half require it.
D) The ethical standards of scientific research on human subjects have not really changed in the last hundred years.

Question 12

One of the most important outcomes of the Declaration of Helsinki was that:

A) Informed consent was more properly developed for clinical vs. non-clinical research programs.
B) Proper guidelines for research involving animals and their proper treatment were explicitly stated.
C) Proper guidelines for research involving minors and their proper treatment were explicitly stated.
D) A committee distinguished more clearly the distinction between therapeutic and nontherapeutic clinical studies.

Question 13

The modern institutional review board (IRB) was largely founded upon the works of which organization?

A) World Health Organization
B) National Science Foundation
C) National Institutes of Health
D) Nuremburg Trials

Question 14

According to your textbook, which one of the following is the least likely to be issued as a reform in the IRB based on what was discussed?

A) Removing altogether the use of standard written and signed informed consent forms to ones of just oral consent.
B) Having a single IRB in charge of multi-site studies instead of requiring each site to have its own protocol.
C) Removing the requirement of IRB oversight in adult survey studies that involve minimal risk.
D) Creation of more standardized guidelines for what the IRB should and should not be responsible for.

Question 15

Which of the following reasons best captures why working with the IRB can seem frustrating to researchers who are seeking to work on a collaborative project?

A) Not all institutions within the USA have IRBs, and if you are working with someone who does not have an IRB that governs the institution, the research collaboration is impossible.
B) Different IRBs across the nation have variations in their requirements, which makes meeting all of them sometimes difficult.
C) IRBs fight over which institution's guidelines should apply for the study, because collaborations only require 1 central IRB protocol to be approved
D) Researchers need to decide to which IRB to submit their application.

Question 16

Which if the following most closely represents the US Department of Health and Human Services' definition of research?

A) A systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge
B) A focused examination of a set of questions, with the overall goals to expand human kind's knowledge of a particular topic area that may or may not have immediate and practical ramifications.
C) A broad set of questions set out to serve the betterment of society
D) A continuing expansion of knowledge through systematic experiments and testing to maximize efficiency in human behavior and output.

Question 17

Which one of the following is the best description of why animal research should be supported?

A) When it comes to animals, we can do experiments on them without any ethical concerns. We can do so much more on animals than we can on humans.
B) Animals have shorter life spans than humans and provide a great platform to observe generational effects in longitudinal studies.
C) Animal models are often directly generalizable to the human specie because our genetic make up are not that different
D) Animal research actually does not have a lot of value. We are different species and the psychological effects on animals do not really speak to anything about the psychology of the human mind.

Question 18

Which of the following is true?

A) Ethics in psychology is well established and incontestable.
B) Ethical practices are guidelines that can be violated upon the researcher's own discretion.
C) Ethical standards exist mainly to protect researchers from lawsuits.
D) Researchers should go above and beyond the minimum regulatory requirements dictated by federal and state law to uphold ethical standards.

Question 19

Which of the following is true?

A) Ethical guidelines might not be consistent throughout the same country.
B) Ethical guidelines are consistent for people who speak the same language across different countries.
C) Ethical guidelines are consistent throughout the same historical era.
D) Ethical guidelines are consistent throughout the same continent.

Question 20

Which of the following options best describes a major ethical concern arising from the Tuskegee Syphilis Study?

A) Only men were selected for the study.
B) Some of the study participants were under-aged.
C) Known effective treatment was withheld from the participants.
D) The participants were told a cover story about the study.

Question 21

Alison is conducting a study on the effects of unfair treatment on emotions. To prevent participant bias, she is unable to reveal the true nature of the study until its conclusion. Which of the following ethical issue should Alison be on an alert for, and what would be the appropriate response?

A) Extreme distress caused by unfair treatment to the participant. Should that occur, Alison should terminate the experimental session.
B) Wide variation in emotion responses amongst participants. Should that occur, Alison should terminate the experimental session.
C) Wide variation in emotion responses amongst participants, but Alison should proceed in all cases to collect comprehensive data.
D) Extreme distress caused by unfair treatment to the participant, but Alison should proceed in all cases to collect comprehensive data.

Question 22

Which of the following aspects of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment posed the biggest ethical problem?

A) The grouping of students into prisoners and guards.
B) The holding of students in a basement laboratory.
C) Only male college students were recruited.
D) Participants experienced extreme distress.

Question 23

Which of the following is not a general principle included in the Belmont Report?

A) Respect for persons, which dictates that researchers protect the autonomy of participants, obtain their informed consent, and treat them with courtesy.
B) Beneficence, which reinforces researchers' obligation to do no harm and at the same time to maximize the study's potential benefits.
C) Justice, which calls for the fair administration of carefully considered procedures and non-exploitative selection of participants, so that people of all races, ethnicities and incomes can benefit from research.
D) Equity, which calls for fair and sufficient compensation of participants' time and resources spent on undergoing the study.

Question 24

Kid Nation is a television program in which 40 children aged 8 to 15 were placed in a privately owned town in New Mexico and left to design their own society and governance without the aid of adults. If this program were instead a study subjected to ethical review, which of the following APA ethical guidelines would it most be in danger of violating, with regard to the participants' wellbeing?

A) Beneficence and nonmaleficence
B) Fidelity and responsibility
C) Integrity
D) Justice

Question 25

Which of the following is true of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)?

A) They exist in every country that conducts research.
B) They are liable for the research they approve.
C) Their members must have obtained a doctorate.
D) They review all types of research, including research with children, special populations and animals.

Question 26

Which of the following describes an example of research, from the perspective of the Institutional Review Board?

A) Collecting demographic data from a very large number of people in a city census.
B) Interviewing a customer on his recent experience with a product.
C) Gathering articles online that support the side you are on in a debating competition.
D) Researchers observing how many students litter in a public university campus setting compared to a private university campuses.

Question 27

Which of the following is true?

A) The U.S. government has had ethical guidelines for medical research in place since the end of the Civil War.
B) The U.S. government did not have an official stance of what constitutes legitimate research until the mid-1960s.
C) The U.S. government did not establish regulations for scientific research until the 2000s.
D) The U.S. government began to regulate research in the 1920s prior to World War II.

Question 28

In which decade did the U.S. government begin to conduct research on healthy participants (who were called "Normals", as opposed to sick patients)?

A) 1870s
B) 2000s
C) 1950s
D) 1920s

Question 29

Which of the following best describes "mission creep"?

A) When the IRB oversees issues unrelated to the protection of human rights.
B) When psychologists conduct research that does not involve human behavior.
C) When the U.S. government sets regulations for experiments conducted at private universities.
D) When ethical guidelines from the U.S.A are imposed upon a foreign society in cross-cultural research.

Question 30

In Burger's (2009) replication of Milgram's famous study, one of the numerous measures taken to make sure that the study passed ethical muster was that participants were given repeated written reminders that they were free to withdraw from the study at any time and still be paid. What did this measure seek to prevent?

A) Participants forgetting about the reward that they would receive at the end of the study.
B) Participants feeling coerced into continuing with the study.
C) Participants feeling bored from doing the study since the task was too simple.
D) Participants from taking too long to complete the study.

Question 31

The Belmont Report was created as a direct response to Nazi experimentation on humans.

Question 32

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was ethically questionable because researchers tested ineffective treatments on Hispanic Americans without informed consent.

Question 33

Milgram's study of obedience was ethically questionable as it potentially inflicted large amounts of distress and harm to the participant.

Question 34

Milgram's and Zimbardo's experiments are completely impossible to conduct under the ethical guidelines today.

Question 35

The IRB is a national institution that governs all research in America.

Question 36

The IRB is legally liable for the research they decide to approve.

Question 37

The DHHS definition of research is very specific, which unifies IRBs around the nation.

Question 38

Ethics are stable and universal principles that have not changed with time.

Question 39

Ethical guidelines can vary from state to state, country to country, and differ around the world.

Question 40

The Declaration of Helsinki distinguished therapeutic from non-therapeutic clinical studies.

Question 41

When conducting collaborative research, it is always the case that only one of the institutions involved needs to file a protocol with the IRB.

Question 42

Mission creep is one of the reasons why some researchers are calling for IRB reform.

Question 43

The vast majority of animal research in the U.S. involves rodents.

Question 44

Ethics issues are generally clear-cut.

Question 45

Researchers are not responsible for maintaining trust between themselves and society; theirs institutions are.