Firstly, it’s probably best to describe what ethics is. The English dictionary gives this definition, ethics is “the philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of the rules and principles that ought to govern it; moral philosophy”. So basically, ethics tells us whether something is morally right or wrong to conduct/ follow through. Currently studying a psychology degree, us psychologists understand the importance of ethics; ethics are set criteria made by the British Psychological Society (BPS), which we must follow when conducting research in order for our research to be considered by a peer review and to be published. If we don’t follow the ethical guidelines there are usually sanctions, an extreme example would be, not being able to conduct research again (this would occur if a researcher had extremely violated an ethical guideline such as protecting participants).
There are many ethical guidelines lines that the BPS set, such as informed consent, confidentiality, right to withdraw, no harm to the participant etc. Here is a link of their guidelines: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/DeafStudiesTeaching/dissert/BPS%20Ethical%20Guidelines.htm Some argue that these guidelines are needed in order to keep participant’s safe, without them, researchers may see less participant’s turning up for a study. For example, If a researcher was allowed to harm their participant’s, how may people would participate, I should think not that many! Also think of the physical and psychological damage a participant might suffer. It doesn’t just take BPS guidelines to inform us that harming a participant is wrong; peoples own moral values can judge that it is wrong. However many researchers disagree, for example due to ethical guidelines Sheridan and King, (1972), couldn’t publish their replica of Milgram’s study. They conducted a study where participants where ordered to deliver electric shocks to a puppy. As this broke ethics, their important findings on obedience, such as more women delivered the maximum shock than men, couldn’t be published and further researcher to discover more about obedience cannot be conducted this way. A link of this study is: http://alevelpsychology.co.uk/as-psychology-aqa-a/social-psychology/social-influence/obedience-to-authority-the-milgram-experiment-inc.-derren-brown-video.html
There is also a problem with informed consent. Informed consent is where the researcher informs the participants of the aims and instructions of the study and then the participant, if they want to take part in the study, sign a consent form. However when we look at research, a researcher never really gains true informed consent, by not doing so they violate another ethical guideline, deception. In fact if a researcher was to can true informed consent this would hinder the research process. If a researcher were to tell the true aims of their study, it would be hard to get results that were not influenced by demand characteristics, social desirability or researcher bias. An example here again would be Stanley Milgram’s electric shock study on obedience (1961). If Milgram had initially told his participants that the aims of the study was to look at obedience and that they were to administer electric shocks, which weren’t real, I very much doubt he would have gained the same results. Instead he told his participants that it was a memory recall experiment. So yes he gained consent, but he deceived his participants, if he had gained true informed consent and not deceived his participants, it would have hindered his research.
This can also been shown with the BBC’s replica of Zimbardo’s prison experiment by Reicher and Haslam’s (2006). Here is a link: http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/resources.php?p=90 Due to BPS ethical guidelines and the fact that many people are aware of Zimbardo’s prison experiment, the participants knew the aims of the study. In the study it is clear that participants were playing up to their roles for the camera rather than the participants passively accepting and enacting the social roles of a prison guard and prisoner. Ethical guidelines prevented Reicher and Haslam gaining results that reflected how people take on different social roles. Instead the results could be criticized for being influenced by demand characteristics and social desirability (the prison guards treated them as equals as that is what they believed the majority of society would want to see).
In conclusion, although BPS guidelines are useful, as they protect the health and wellbeing of participants, they do hinder the research process. By having guidelines such as informed consent, deception and protection of participant’s research on behaviour such as obedience becomes more difficult.
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Great blog which coverage a lot of issues of ethics in great detail. Similarly to you I believe that documenting ethics procedure can hinder research progress. However I also believe that it does not have too. The example given of Sheridan and King (1972) demonstrates a very unethical study, but I believe a few changes could make it much more ethical. For example the reason it was seen as unethical was because it used a real puppy and real electrical shocks. This could be easily changed so that participants believed they were shocking a puppy when in fact they were not. This would have made it highly more likely that the research would be ethically approved. A demonstration of when this has happened before is when Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford prison experiment study was replicated Reicher and Haslam as a few small changes made the study much more ethical. Additionally Sheridan and King (1972) could have used different terminology when describing their experiment. For example saying that they used an electoral stimulus to stimulate the dog rather than saying they gave the dog electric shocks makes it more likely that the research will be ethically approved.
Great use of evidence, here each point is supported with an example or a study. So great work in that respect. However I feel your interpretation of the code of ethics is far too literal. They are ethical guidelines, not hard and fast rules, therefore they have some flexibility within reason.
You argue that informed consent “would hinder the research process.” However if you read the link which you provided in your blog (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/DeafStudiesTeaching/dissert/BPS%20Ethical%20Guidelines.htm)
Under consent it states;
“Whenever possible, the investigator should inform all participants of the objectives of the investigation”.
Focusing on the first few phrases, “whenever possible.” It’s not saying that you must always tell your participants the full aims of your study, it’s simply stating that if you are able to tell them the aims of your study without jeopardizing the aims of your research, then you should.
Secondly you assume that failing to adhere to the principle of informed consent and deception are the same thing. Though I would agree the line between the two may unclear at times, this does not mean they are the same.
Again to quote the same link you provided in your blog:
“The withholding of information or the misleading of participants is unacceptable if the participants are typically likely to object or show unease once debriefed”.
This time the focus is on “is unacceptable if the participants are typically likely to object or show unease once debriefed”.
So simply withholding information that is likely to jeopardize your aims, and that isn’t likely to cause harm would be a lack of informed consent but not necessarily deception. For example in the cast your mind back to study mentioned in the research talk on Thursday. Steve tipper mentioned that participants were asked to view some pictures of faces and rate them on attributes such as friendliness. The participants were not told is that they measuring whether the pupil size of the person in the picture would affect the ratings given by the participants. This is an example of failing to meet informed consent, however this isn’t deception. I very much doubt that a person would “object or show unease” when they’re debriefed.
However I’m sure some people may argued against this and state that how do we know what someone will object to? In this case as the link states you should seek appropriate consultation.
So really as you can see your interpretation of the ethics is a little too strict, as a result you conclusion that ethics hinder the research process is far from true. Research has even confirmed this, (Adair, Dushenko & Lindsay, 1985) found that deception is used in up to 50-75% of published reports. Therefore you can see from this research that, if needed ethics can be swayed, however there needs to be a valid reason for doing so.
In short, I really liked your topic choice and your use of evidence is great, however I don’t agree with your conclusion that ethics restrict research.
You explain a variety of points to ethics very well, i never knew about the Sheridan and King study, it was an interesting read. In regard to the bbc emulation of the stanford prison experiment i believe there was heavy social desirability since they were being filmed in front of the cameras knowing this. In all research though there is going to be ethics broken such as informed consent but especially informed consent in relation to field experiments. This applies to Pillavin whereby the experimenters couldn’t debrief the participants after the train journey as this would have been impossible with everyone getting off the train and heading different ways. Although this didn’t make it a completely unethical study.