Ethical Considerations

Importance of deception

Deception may be used to get access to participants that would otherwise not be willing to be studied - as seen in Festinger's study of the Doomsday cult. Even if they would have agreed to being studied, they may have radically changed their behaviour. This use of deception is the most controversial because it violates the rule of consent and it breaks down trust between psychologists and those being studied when (and if) the deception is revealed.

Conclusion

Ethics are an important consideration in any study and serious ethical violations compromise the research. High levels of stress may also influence a participant's behavior in ways that may influence the outcome of the study. Today the SCLOA is much more aware of ethical considerations when conducting research.

Applications

Festinger (1956)- cult Abrams et al (1990)- conformity

Requirement

If a psychologist uses deception, the first step is that she has to get her study approved by an ethics board. Psychologists are required to have their plans peer-reviewed to avoid unethical practice. Deception must be justified: -should not be used for its own sake, but it must be shown that there is no other way to do the research and that the research has value. -must be revealed to the participants at the end of the research and they have the right to withdraw their data if they feel that the deception was not acceptable.

Bandura

Method children watched either a female or male model either act aggressively (bashing Bobo with a baseball bat and yelling at it), act passively (assembling toys), or had no model- this acts as a control group to see what the children would do when simply put with the Bobo.then children were individually invited into a room full of toys and told that they were not allowed to play with them since they were for other children- caused them to feel frustrated Results all children showed some level of aggression saw aggressive model- most aggressive, followed by control, passive model- least aggression Boys- most violent, tended to imitate both male and female models Girls- tended to imitate verbal aggression of male and imitate female more directly

Undo harm/ stress

Outcome of deception not only deception that can lead to undue stress or harm, but also the nature of the procedure itself. "Undue stress" refers to any stress that would be more than a participant would encounter in everyday life. Simple discomfort or embarrassment is not "undue stress or harm." But several of the early studies in social psychology did cause great stress for the individual. In addition, the person must be able to leave the experiment in the same condition in which s/he arrived. So, when Bandura teaches children to be aggressive in the Bashing Bobo experiment, there is a question of harm in that perhaps the children have now learned to be violent.

Social psychology and deception

The SCLOA, more than the other two levels of analysis, attempts to carry out research in natural environments. A lot of field research is done to see how people react in social situations. But a researcher cannot wait forever for a situation to just "happen." Therefore, the researcher "makes things happen."

Limitation of study

The difficulties of carrying out research that is covert - for example, the need to take notes privately, which may lead to data being lost or distorted due to the limitations of memory

Discussion

The difficulty of predicting undue stress or harm. Cost vs. benefit; The question of short-term stress or harm vs. long-term benefit The importance of debriefing and the responsibilities of the psychologist if undue stress or harm has been experienced. Finally, the question of ethics is very complex. Even though there are several different ethical considerations, they are intertwined. Using deception means that the participants are not fully informed, and thus the question of consent is problematic. Debriefing is essential when using deception as the true goals of the experiment should be explained and, in the case where there is undue stress or harm, the participant should receive guidance from the researcher.

Introduction

There are many reasons why deception is used. Most commonly, -to control for demand characteristics. If the participants are not sure what the study is about, they are less likely to do what they are "supposed to do" - expectancy effects are avoided. They may also try harder than usual in order to do their best. When this happens, we do not see how the participant may normally behave. -to create and/ or manipulate a social situation. Sometimes deception is used simply to set up a situation so that it can be used to study behaviour. -to get access to participants which would otherwise not be willing to be studied or if they knew they were being studied, they would radically change their behavior.

Abrams et al

To determine if in-group identity would affect one's willingness to conform 50 undergraduate students (23 males, 27 females) enroled in an introductory psychology coursethree confederates, either from in-group or out-group Independent variables- whether confederates were from an in-group (psychology students) or out-group (ancient history students)- whether the participant's responses were public or private Participants sat in a row, facing the monitor, participant always at the end of the row Confederates introduced, participants told not to talk to each other Like Asch - shown stimulus line, then three other lines (which is same length?) 18 total trials (in 9 correct response, in 9 unanimous confederate incorrect response) Participant answered last In public condition- all four members of the group gave their judgements out loud In private condition- participant asked to note down the others' responses- confederates gave answers out loud- real participant recorded own response privately 77% of all participants conformed to the confederate judgments on at least one trial no gender differences observed very similar to asch decreasing conformity:- public ingroup > private ingroup> private outgroup > public outgroup

Festinger

covert, naturalistic participant observation in order to find out how members of a cult would behave when they found out that the world would not end on the day that they believed it would. Festinger and his team joined the cult in order to gather their data. Obviously, they did not tell the cult they were doing this - so it was covert (a form of deception). They documented the conversations they had with the cult members, but in order to do this, they often had to take "bathroom breaks" to write everything down without being noticed. When "doomsday" arrived, they found that the cult members rationalized their situation - believing that their prayers had saved the world. In this way, it allowed them to save their self-esteem

deception influences other ethical considerations

informed consent

Deception

misleading participants about the true purpose of a study or the events that will actually transpire

How the nature of social psychology may affect the choice to use deception

necessary in order to get reliable results the positives outweighs the negatives

The importance of debriefing and how deception could lead to withdrawal of data by the participant.

people would feel stupid, upset and manipulated however, participants may also get to learn from this experiment by being more aware of their actions

The importance of debriefing and how deception could lead to withdrawal of data by the participant.

some participants may be upset

How deception is used

the researcher may use a confederate to create and/or manipulate a social situation in order to observe the behavior of the "naive participant." Once again, this is done to establish a cause and effect relationship between variables, but also attempts to look at a group. What the participant does to realize is that the group is actually "in" on the experiment.