Ethics in Psychology Research

1. Define ethical behavior in research.

1. Ethics are a collection of moral standards and principles that guide the decisions we make. They essentially tell us what we should do. What the researcher could do is different from what they should do.
2. Cost-Benefit Analysis: To know if the research should be conducted, the researcher needs to make sure the benefits outweigh the costs or risks of harm.  This can be accomplished by increasing participants’ benefits and/or lowering the costs.

2. Define key variables.

1. Create an operational definition (i.e., a clear description of exactly what a researcher means by a concept) of negative feedback.
   1. For the purposes of this experiment, negative feedback could entail a number of different forms, e.g., medical results that indicate the participants have a disease, a diagnostic test that indicates they have low IQs, harsh commentary on their physical appearance, or severe criticism on their written work.
   2. Applying cost-benefit analysis, providing severe criticism on written work is the least harmful type of negative feedback to give to the experiment participants. Therefore, ethical behavior dictates that this is the type of negative feedback that should be used.
2. Create an operational definition (i.e., a clear description of exactly what a researcher means by a concept) of aggression.
   1. For purposes of this experiment, aggression could involve a number of different behaviors, e.g., being verbally abrasive to the participant, physically pushing the participant, administering an electrical shock to the participant, or giving the participant a foul-tasting drink.
   2. Applying cost-benefit analysis, the noxious beverage incurs the least amount of harm to the participant (and is something that has been used in previous research). Therefore, ethical behavior dictates that this is the type of aggression that should be used. 

3. Conducting the Study

1. Provide participants with informed consent, a brief description of the research, a sense of the procedure, an indication of potential risks/benefits, the right to withdrawal at any time, and a manner to get help if they experience discomfort.
2. Direct participant to write a paragraph that describes a day at the beach.
3. Once complete, inform participant that the paragraph will be delivered to another researcher (the evaluator) in the next room for evaluation that should take about 5 min.
4. Once in the other room, the researcher randomly determines which of the two types of feedback the participant receives by rolling dice. For an even number, give negative feedback and for an odd number, give neutral feedback.
   1. For negative feedback, mark the paragraph, in red ink, with several negative comments, e.g., “This is ridiculous!”; “Are you sure this even makes sense?”; “very awkwardly phrased”; “too obvious!”; “really????”; “not very imaginative”; and “needs a complete rewrite.”
   2. For neutral feedback, return an unmarked paragraph to the participant and explain that the other researcher was too busy to comment. 
5. Return the paragraph, with feedback from the evaluator, to the participant.  Suggest they read it over while part 2 of the study is prepared.
6. Prepare 5 beverages (highly sugared water, lemon water, plain water, vinegar in water, and hot sauce in water) that provide a range of pleasant to unpleasant tastes.
7. Prepare index cards with a number on one side and description on the other (1 = sugar water, 2 = lemon water, 3 = water, 4 = vinegar water; 5 = hot sauce water).
8. Return to participant with the 5 beverages, with labels, arrayed on a platter.
   1. Explain to the participant what each beverage contains.
   2. Tell the participant to choose one beverage for the evaluator’s friend, in the other room, to consume.
   3. Record the number associated with the chosen beverage. This number correlates to the level of aggression displayed by the participant.

4. Debrief: For further ethical reasons, it is necessary to debrief the participant carefully as to the nature of the experiment.

1. “Thank you for participating. In this study, I was trying to determine if receiving negative feedback on your paragraph would lead you to scapegoat, or take out your frustration on the evaluator’s friend by selecting a more distasteful beverage. We believed that negative evaluations would lead to retaliation toward the friend in terms of more distasteful drink choices. Do you have any questions?”
2. Explain explicitly why deception was necessary for the experiment.
   1. “We want to tell you about the deception we used in this study. We used deception because it is important that we get a natural performance, not one that the participant feels is expected. If participants were to know the true reasoning and hypothesis behind the study they may perform in an unnatural way by trying to live up to the experimenter’s perceived expectations. To eliminate this problem it was necessary for us to tell participants a cover story for the experiment. The cover story in this experiment was that your essay was truly being evaluated. However, the feedback we gave had nothing at all to do with what you wrote. We also mislead you to believe that there was an evaluator and his friend in the next room. In reality, the researcher gave you the feedback and there wasn’t anyone in the next room. Because of the nature of the deception, it is quite natural for participants to not realize that they were being deceived.”