What problems are there with psychological experiments

Having this fact revealed to the participant after the study concluded would be a clear example of psychological harm. In the s, Harry Harlow of the University of Wisconsin tested infant dependency using rhesus monkeys in his experiments rather than human babies. He would scare the infants and watch as the monkey ran towards the cloth model. Harlow also conducted experiments which isolated monkeys from other monkeys in order to show that those who did not learn to be part of the group at a young age were unable to assimilate and mate when they got older.

Kalin, M. He hopes to discover data on human anxiety, but is meeting with resistance from animal welfare organizations and the general public. In , Seligman and his team used dogs as subjects to test how one might perceive control. The group would place a dog on one side of a box that was divided in half by a low barrier. Then they would administer a shock, which was avoidable if the dog jumped over the barrier to the other half. Dogs quickly learned how to prevent themselves from being shocked.

The next day, these dogs were placed in the box with the barrier. Despite new circumstances that would have allowed them to escape the painful shocks, these dogs did not even try to jump over the barrier; they only cried and did not jump at all, demonstrating learned helplessness.

Muzafer Sherif conducted the Robbers Cave Experiment in the summer of , testing group dynamics in the face of conflict. A group of preteen boys were brought to a summer camp, but they did not know that the counselors were actually psychological researchers. The boys were split into two groups, which were kept very separate.

The groups only came into contact with each other when they were competing in sporting events or other activities. The experimenters orchestrated increased tension between the two groups, particularly by keeping competitions close in points. Then, Sherif created problems, such as a water shortage, that would require both teams to unite and work together in order to achieve a goal.

After a few of these, the groups became completely undivided and amicable. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.

Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. 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. His graduate student, Mary Tudor, experimented while Johnson supervised her work. She divided a group of 22 children into two groups.

Each group was a mixture of children with and without speech problems. One group received encouragement and positive feedback, but the other was ridiculed for any speech problems, including non-existent problems. Children who received ridicule naturally made no progress, and some of the orphans with no speech problems developed those very problems.

The study continued for six months and caused lasting, chronic psychological issues for some of the children. The Milgram Conformity Experiment After the horrors of the Second World War, psychological researchers like Stanley Milgram wondered what made average citizens act like those in Germany who had committed atrocities. Milgram wanted to determine how far people would go carrying out actions that might be detrimental to others if they were ordered or encouraged to do so by an authority figure.

The Milgram experiment showed the tension between that obedience to the orders of the authority figure and personal conscience. In each experiment, Milgram designated three people as either a teacher, learner or experimenter. The teacher attempted to teach the learner how to perform small sets of word associations. When the learner got a pair wrong, the teacher delivered an electric shock to the learner.

In reality, there was no shock given. The learner pretended to be in increasingly greater amounts of distress. When some teachers expressed hesitation about increasing the level of shocks, the experimenter encouraged them to do so. Many of the subjects the teachers experienced severe and lasting psychological distress. The Milgram Conformity Experiment has become the byword for well-intentioned psychological experiments gone wrong.

David Reimer — When David Reimer was eighth months old, his penis was seriously damaged during a failed circumcision. His parents contacted John Money, a professor of psychology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, who was a researcher in the development of gender. Researchers can determine whether participants are likely to be distressed when deception is disclosed, by consulting culturally relevant groups.

If the participant is likely to object or be distressed once they discover the true nature of the research at debriefing, then the study is unacceptable. The true nature of the research should be revealed at the earliest possible opportunity, or at least during debriefing. Participants, and the data gained from them must be kept anonymous unless they give their full consent. No names must be used in a lab report. What do we do if we find out something which should be disclosed e. Researchers have no legal obligation to disclose criminal acts and have to determine which is the most important consideration: their duty to the participant vs.

Ultimately, decisions to disclose information will have to be set in the context of the aims of the research. Participants should be able to leave a study at any time if they feel uncomfortable.

They should also be allowed to withdraw their data. They should be told at the start of the study that they have the right to withdraw. McLeod, S. Psychology research ethics. Simply Psychology. American Psychological Association. American Psychological Association ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. Harris, B. Key words: A history of debriefing in social psychology. Morawski Ed.