Ethics cont.

1. Ethics cont. Psych 231: Research Methods in Psychology

2. Exam 1 in two days! • Review session tonight • DeGarmo 18 @ 5:00 Announcements

3. Basic courtesy • Institutional review board approval • Informed consent • Avoiding deception • Freedom from coercion • Protection from harm • Debriefing • Confidentiality • Costs vs. Benefits APA’s code of ethics www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html

4. Costs Benefits • Costs: all potential risks to the participants • Physical harm • Psychological harm • Loss of confidentiality • Benefits: the “good” outcomes • Direct benefits to participants • Benefits to knowledge base • Benefits to world at large Costs/Benefits analysis

5. Fraud prevention • Replication – repeat a research study to validate results • Plagiarism – taking credit for another’s work or ideas • Avoided by citing the ideas or words of others • Peer Review – critical analysis of research by peers in the same area Scientific Integrity

6. Dirty tricks (this will get you thrown out) • Questionable tricks (these are a little fuzzier, but be wary) • Neat tricks (accepted as okay, and sometimes necessary) Ethics in Science Quiz Ethical responsibility to science

7. Dirty tricks • Questionable tricks • Neat tricks • Fabrication of results • Reformulating your theory as you go • Falsifying credentials • Plagiarism • Little or no attempt to minimize confounds • Deliberately hiding (significant) errors in published work • Little or no attempt to minimize demand characteristics Ethics in Science Quiz DT NT DT DT QT DT QT Ethical responsibility to science

8. Dirty tricks • Questionable tricks • Neat tricks • Throwing out data • Reorganizing order of report of experiments • Violations of underlying statistical assumptions • Strategic graphing of the data • Duplicate publications (presented as new) • Selective reporting of the results • Leaving out some bad experiments (not bad results) Ethics in Science Quiz QT or DT depends reason for throwing out NT QT QT DT QT NT Ethical responsibility to science

9. Why use animals in research? • Same building blocks (e.g., nervous systems) • Control • Often we can’t control the relevant past experiences of our human subjects, but we can with animals • Easier to control certain experimental factors with animals • Irreversible and/or harmful effects Using animals in research

10. Why use animals in research (cont.)? • Some unique, special characteristics • Simpler systems • May allow you to focus on particular variables (IV’s and DV’s), easier to do the experiment without a lot of complex interactions Using animals in research

11. But animals and humans are different • Well, there are strong similarities • Evolution - Common ancestry - as a result, things may work in similar ways • But, we do need to be aware that there are differences, and always keep that critical eye, think of alternative explanations Using animals in research

12. If animals are so similar to humans, then should they have similar rights that humans have? Is it unethical to do things to them that we wouldn’t do to ourselves? • There is no simple answer, no clear right or wrong. Each individual must decide for themselves. Animal ethics: What rights do animals have?

13. Exam 1 • Coverage • Textbook (chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6), lectures, & labs • Scientific method • Getting ideas • Developing (good) theories • Reviewing the literature • Psychological Science • Ethics • Basic methodologies • Multiple choice and short answer questions Next time