AICE Ethical Guidelines in Psychology

Disadvantages of Conducting Unethical Studies

invades human rights; participant may succumb to experimenter effects and try to guess the aim of the experiment; discourages future psychological research; long-term damage if participant is hurt and something bad happens

Housing

isolation and crowding can cause animals distress; caging conditions should depend on the sociality/aggression of the breed of the animal; should have enough room to move freely and have sufficient amounts of food/water; artificial environment created should replicate the natural environment that is important to the animals survival/welfare

Advantages of Conducting Unethical Studies

knowledge gained may be valuable, so harm may be necessary; participants behave naively; more ecological validity; participants never truly harmed

Confidentiality

participants and the data gained from them must be kept anonymous unless they given full consent; researchers cannot disclose criminal acts

Withdraw

participants should be able to leave a study at any time if they feel uncomfortable; data must be allowed to be withdrawn; must be told they are allowed to withdraw

Protection of Participants

participants should feel no distress, be embarassed, frightened, offended, or harmed; special care and therapeutic treatment must be available

Procedures, Pain and Distress

research causing death, disease, injury, physiological/psychological distress or discomfort should be avoided; experimental design should seek to enrich the lives of animals; daily care and dietary needs must be monitored; any costs to the animals should be justified by scientific benefit of the work

Replacement

researchers should consider replacing animal experiments with alternatives i.e videos from previous studies or computer simulations

Number of Animals

researchers should use only the minimum number of animals for the experiment; pilot studies should ensure the experiment is promising and determine whether animals should be used in the experiment

Species and Strain

the chosen species and strain for the experiment should be the one least likely to experience distress of feel pain; must consider whether they were bred in captivity or not

Ethical Guidelines for Animals

the ethical guidelines include: replacement, species and strain, numbers, procedures, pain and distress, housing, reward, deprivation and aversive stimuli, anesthesia, analgesia, and euthanasia

Informed Consent

the psychologist needs consent from the participant; the participant must be aware of what they are agreeing to

Deception

when participants are misled or misinformed about the aim of the research; the researcher should avoid deception unless there is no alternative; should not cause distress

Debrief

after the research is over the participant should be able to discuss the procedure and finding with the psychologist; the participant must be informed if they were decieved

Anesthesia, Analgesia, and Euthanasia

animals should be protected from pain; if there is surgery or use of probing equipment-appropriate anesthesia and analgesia should be used; the animal should be euthanized (put to rest) if it's going to suffer long lasting pain

Reward, Deprivation, and Aversive Stimuli

if the study requires deprivation, the normal feeding/drinking patterns of the animals must be considered; the use of preferred food should be considered as an alternative to deprivation