Ethics: Do No Harm

Ethics in research exist to protect individuals from harm. This protection is for the psychological, emotional, or physical well-being of a person. There have been experiments held in the past, which have left lasting scars of the people that participated in them. For instance, Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison study. Participants were subjected to extreme emotional trauma (Carnahan & McFarland, 2007). Researchers understand that the well-being of the research participants is just as important as being as the research itself and partaking in ethical behavior is key.

The way the research was conducted in scenario two could have been done better and differently. The researcher used to deception in order to collect data on a large manufacturing plant and possibly the workers. No one was adept to what was going on until after he was about to leave. The first matter that I think of is whether the manufacturing company knew that he was conducting research and whether they were made aware of the fact. Secondly, instead of revealing his identity to others when he was about to leave, they should have been debriefed and allowed to withdraw their data from the research. Likewise, there is the issue of participant privacy. Since there is no detail about what the researcher was doing research on, it’s unknown whether or not personal identifying information was recorded or not. If the others were not informed about what data was taken, this could cause harm to them. He should have explained his research as early as possible and before the collection of data (Stangor, 2013).

Depending on the type of research the researcher was conducting, if it were something that involved the workers, the researcher could have utilized a questionnaire to conduct his research. I imagine that if he was working at the plant, he was observing the behavior of the workers. However, in a work environment such as a manufacturing plant, there are not too many anomalies that could happen since everything is routine. Therefore, I stand by the view that a survey would have been a better route. Deception was not needed in this scenario.

Scenario three was an example of how a researcher should not conduct research. Not only was the research conducted without informing the individuals that he was doing the research, but no one was ever debriefed about the research. Also, the money that was collected was not returned to the people who donated to the "stranger." Therefore, the money was collected on a false premise. Even if the collection of the money were not an issue of ethical behavior on behalf of APA’s guidelines, it would probably be against most people’s idea of ethical behavior on a personal level.

Although I do not believe there is an alternate way to do the research, I feel that the research could have been carried out differently. For instance, instead of letting people donate money and walking away, there could be assistants on the side paying attention to who donates what and how much. It allows the research team to return the money collected, and it also allows for the people to be debriefed. This allows for participants to withdraw their data if they so choose. An issue with attempting to carry out this research differently, like using a questionnaire, would pose a problem because people may choose an answer that’s socially desirable (Fiske, 2014). This would invalidate the research because people would not answer honestly. People like to be viewed in a favorable light, and choosing a view or answer that is not socially acceptable would cause dissonance and affect the answer that he or she would select.

Using deception is not always the best route to go when conducting research, but it is an option that is available (Stangor, 2013). It is used when there is no other recourse to getting the data needed. The guidelines that the APA has put together exist for the reason to be ethical in the collection of data as to protect the researcher and the research participants. By not following them, researchers open up the possibility of harming the participants physically, psychologically, or emotionally.

References

• Carnahan, T., & McFarland, S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could Participant Self-Selection Have Led to the Cruelty? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(5), 603–614. doi:10.1177/0146167206292689 ↩
• Fiske, S. T. (2014). Ordinary Personology: Figuring Out Why People Do What They Do. In Social Beings: Core Motives in Social Psychology, 3rd Edition. Wiley Global Education. ↩
• Stangor, C. (2013). Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences (4 ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. ↩1 ↩2