Describe the ethical guidelines that safeguard human research participants

Earlier in psychology history, many experiments were performed with highly questionable and even outrageous violations of ethical considerations. Milgram's infamous obedience experiment, for example, involved deceiving human subjects into believing that they were delivering painful, possibly even life-threatening, electrical shocks to another person.

These controversial psychology experiments played a major role in the development of the ethical guidelines and regulations that psychologists must abide by today. When performing studies or experiments that involve human participants, psychologists must submit their proposal to an institutional review board (IRB) for approval. ​These committees help ensure that experiments conform to ethical and legal guidelines.

Ethical codes, such as those established by the American Psychological Association, are designed to protect the safety and best interests of those who participate in psychological research. Such guidelines also protect the reputations of psychologists, the field of psychology itself and the institutions that sponsor psychology research.

Ethical Guidelines for Research With Human Subjects

When determining ethical guidelines for research, most experts agree that the cost of conducting the experiment must be weighed against the potential benefit to society the research may provide. While there is still a great deal of debate about ethical guidelines, there are some key components that should be followed when conducting any type of research with human subjects.

Participation Must Be Voluntary

All ethical research must be conducted using willing participants. Study volunteers should not feel coerced, threatened or bribed into participation. This becomes especially important for researchers working at universities or prisons, where students and inmates are often encouraged to participate in experiments.

Researchers Must Obtain Informed Consent

Informed consent is a procedure in which all study participants are told about procedures and informed of any potential risks. Consent should be documented in written form. Informed consent ensures that participants know enough about the experiment to make an informed decision about whether or not they want to participate.

Obviously, this can present problems in cases where telling the participants the necessary details about the experiment might unduly influence their responses or behaviors in the study. The use of deception in psychology research is allowed in certain instances, but only if the study would be impossible to conduct without the use of deception, if the research will provide some sort of valuable insight and if the subjects will be debriefed and informed about the study's true purpose after the data has been collected.

Researchers Must Maintain Participant Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an essential part of any ethical psychology research. Participants need to be guaranteed that identifying information and individual responses will not be shared with anyone who is not involved in the study.

While these guidelines provide some ethical standards for research, each study is different and may present unique challenges. Because of this, most colleges and universities have a Human Subjects Committee or Institutional Review Board that oversees and grants approval for any research conducted by faculty members or students. These committees provide an important safeguard to ensure academic research is ethical and does not pose a risk to study participants.

Many psychologists study nonhuman animals because they find them fascinating. They want to understand how different species learn, think, and behave. Psychologists also study animals to learn about people. We humans are not like animals; we are animals, sharing a common biology. Animal experiments have therefore led to treatments for human diseases—insulin for diabetes, vaccines to prevent polio and rabies, transplants to replace defective organs.

Humans are more complex. But the same processes by which we learn are present in rats, monkeys, and even sea slugs. The simplicity of the sea slug’s nervous system is precisely what makes it so revealing of the neural mechanisms of learning.

“Rats are very similar to humans except that they are not stupid enough to purchase lottery tickets.”

Sharing such similarities, should we respect rather than experiment on our animal relatives? The animal protection movement protests the use of animals in psychological, biological, and medical research. Out of this heated debate, two issues emerge.

The basic question: Is it right to place the well-being of humans above that of other animals? In experiments on stress and cancer, is it right that mice get tumors in the hope that people might not? Should some monkeys be exposed to an HIV-like virus in the search for an AIDS vaccine? Humans raise and slaughter 56 billion animals a year (Worldwatch Institute, 2013). Is this use and consumption of other animals as natural as the behavior of carnivorous hawks, cats, and whales?

If we decide to give human life top priority, a second question emerges: What safeguards should protect the well-being of animals in research? One survey asked animal researchers if they supported government regulations protecting research animals. Ninety-eight percent supported such protection for primates, dogs, and cats. And 74 percent also backed regulations providing for the humane care of rats and mice (Plous & Herzog, 2000). Many professional associations and funding agencies already have such guidelines. British Psychological Society (BPS) guidelines call for housing animals under reasonably natural living conditions, with companions for social animals (Lea, 2000). American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines state that researchers must ensure the “comfort, health, and humane treatment” of animals and minimize “infection, illness, and pain” (APA, 2002). Most universities screen research proposals, often through an animal care ethics committee, and laboratories are regulated and inspected.

Animals have themselves benefited from animal research. After measuring stress hormone levels in samples of millions of dogs brought each year to animal shelters, research psychologists devised handling and stroking methods to reduce stress and ease the dogs’ move to adoptive homes (Tuber et al., 1999). Other studies have helped improve care and management in animals’ natural habitats. By revealing our behavioral kinship with animals and the remarkable intelligence of chimpanzees, gorillas, and other animals, experiments have led to increased empathy and protection for other species. At its best, a psychology concerned for humans and sensitive to animals serves the welfare of both.

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