If these experiences were always pleasant and any changes in the participant always positive, participants would participate gladly in experiments, and scientists would face few ethical questions. However, at times the scientist may want to answer a question that requires that the participant experience psychological or physiological discomfort. In terms of psychopathology, we need to be especially certain that the individual with a particular disorder understands what is being asked of her and can freely respond. These situations raise a number of questions:
1 What are the responsibilities of the scientist toward the participant?
2 What are the rights of the participant?
3 Are there guidelines for reconciling conflicts between the rights of the participant to pursue happiness and the rights of the scientist to pursue knowledge?
4 What type of relationship or dialogue would be most productive for helping the scientist and participant to fulfill their needs and desires?
Since the 1950s, the American Psychological Association (APA) has published a set of guidelines. This is available online at www.apa.org/ethics/. In 1974, the National Research Act was signed into law in the United States. This law sought to protect human research participants. In response to the law, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare held a conference in 1976 and produced a report. This is referred to as the Belmont Report (http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/belmont.html). The Belmont Report identifies three basic ethical principles—respect for persons, beneficence, and justice.
1 Respect for persons includes the idea that people can choose on their own whether to participate. Further, people with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection. This suggests that all individuals with mental disorders must be protected in research. An important consideration is to determine if individuals can speak for themselves and are able to agree to be part of an experiment.
2 Beneficence is to be understood as meaning that researchers should do no harm as well as maximize possible benefits and minimize potential negative experiences.
3 The third ethical principle of justice is a statement that research participation should be available to all people and not just to special classes or groups. This principle is operative in at least two different ways: first, that researchers use more than an easily accessible or compromised sample such as people in a mental hospital and second, that groups of individuals not be excluded. For example, during the middle of the twentieth century, little was known about the manner in which different types of treatments for mental disorders were influenced by cultural factors. Part of the problem was that individuals from some ethnic origins were not recruited into research studies. Another problem was that clinicians tended not to offer African Americans the same choice of treatment alternatives offered to white Americans.
The Experiment as an Ethical Problem
Let’s begin with an extreme case of conflictual experimentation: the Nazi medical experiments during World War II. In several concentration camps, such as Ravensbrück, Dachau, and Buchenwald, prisoners were injected with a virus or bacterium and then received drugs to determine the drugs’ effectiveness against the injections. Although medical knowledge was gained from these experiments, the world judged the experiments to be unethical and criminal.
During the trials of the Nazi scientist-physicians, held in Nuremberg, Germany, it was determined that they were guilty of war crimes. Seven of them were later hanged, and eight received long prison sentences. As a result of these trials, a code of ethics for medical experimentation with human participants (called the Nuremberg Code) was adopted as a guideline for future research. What was unethical about the experiments at the Nazi concentration camps was not that human beings were given a virus. Almost all of our current procedures of preventive medicine (the polio vaccine as a historical example) required that the procedure be tested on human beings. What was deemed unethical was that these Nazi physicians were convicted of conducting experiments without the consent of their participants.
Ingredients of the Initial Scientist–Participant Dialogue
One of the first principles of research is that the participants must consent to being part of an experiment. Furthermore, they must also be informed of the experiment’s purpose and its potential risks. Thus, major ingredients in the dialogue between the scientist and the research participant are voluntary participation and informed consent.
Voluntary Participation
In the initial dialogue between the scientist and the prospective participant, the scientist must ask the participant to be a part of the experiment. This is the principle of voluntary participation. In essence, the voluntary participation principle requires that a person should participate in an experiment only by free choice. In addition, this principle states that a participant should be free to leave an experiment at any time, whether or not the experiment has been completed.
A Polish survivor displays scars she endured at a concentration camp during World War II. After the war, the Nuremberg trials focused on how the German Nazi government treated people under their control, including subjecting thousands of prisoners to medical experiments. These trials helped establish ethical considerations in research.
ullstein bild/Contributor/ullstein bild/Getty Images
voluntary participation: a principle stating that a person should participate in an experiment only by free choice, and should be free to leave an experiment at any time, whether or not the experiment has been completed
As you think about voluntary participation, you will become entangled in the question of whether anyone can ever make a free decision and, if so, under what circumstances. As you might have realized already, this question becomes even more complicated for someone interested in developmental psychology, which requires research with children, or for someone interested in psychopathology, which requires research with clients or patients who are mentally impaired. In terms of ethical concerns involving research with children, a number of recommendations have been put forward by the National Academies of Sciences, including how to obtain informed consent and ensure voluntary participation in research (Field & Behrman, 2004).
Informed Consent
Assuming for a moment that someone can agree freely to participate in research, the scientist in the initial dialogue should inform the prospective participant about what will be required of him or her during the study. The scientist must also inform the prospective participant about any potential harm that may come from participation. Thus, the prospective participant must be given complete information on which to base a decision. This is the principle of informed consent. As you can imagine, the principle of informed consent raises the issue of how much information about an experiment is enough, and that is sometimes a gray area.
informed consent: a prospective participant in psychological research must be given complete information on which to base a decision, including information about what will be required of him or her during the study, and about any potential harm that may come from participation
From the principles of voluntary participation and informed consent, one can see that it is the initial task of the scientist to fully discuss the experimental procedure with prospective participants and to remind them that they are human beings who do not give away their rights just because they are taking part in a psychological experiment.
The Rights of the Research Participant and the Responsibilities of the Experimenter
In our society, research participants