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Unethical Research Motivations
It is ethically unacceptable to subject research participants to pain, fear, or embarrassment solely to satisfy a researcher's personal curiosity. Any research that poses such risks must be justified by substantial and legitimate scientific or societal benefits, rather than personal interest.
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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU
Related
Debriefing
Unjustifiable Research Harm
APA Ethics Code
Humane Care and Use of Animals in Research
Beneficiaries of Psychological Research
Unethical Research Motivations
Risks and Benefits to Research Participants
Risks and Benefits to Science and Society
Ethical Implications of the Milgram Experiment
Why can the ethical evaluation of weighing a study's risks against its benefits be particularly challenging for psychological researchers?
A psychological study can be considered ethically acceptable even when the research participants themselves bear most of the risks, as long as the potential benefits to the broader scientific community or society are judged to sufficiently outweigh those risks.
A researcher proposes a study to test if mild electric shocks can improve concentration in students with ADHD. To evaluate the ethics of this study, match each study element to its corresponding category in a risk-benefit analysis.
A researcher is evaluating the ethicality of a study on how social isolation affects mental health. Arrange the following steps in the logical order required to effectively weigh the potential risks of the study against its potential benefits.
A researcher is developing a study to investigate the impact of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance in emergency room doctors. The study requires participants to stay awake for hours while performing simulated surgical tasks. A review committee is concerned that the high risk of physical exhaustion outweighs the scientific benefits. Which of the following newly proposed research frameworks best synthesizes a solution to achieve an ethical balance?
In the process of weighing risks against benefits, different groups are affected in different ways. Match each entity involved in psychological research to the role it typically plays in this ethical evaluation.
Because the potential risks to individual participants and the potential benefits to the scientific community are not measured in the same units, the process of deciding if a study is ethically justified requires an inherently subjective ethical _____.
In psychological research ethics, the foundational principle states that a study is considered ethical only when its potential _____ outweigh its potential risks.
Dr. Aris is designing a study to evaluate a new, intensive online mindfulness program for reducing anxiety in college students. The program requires participants to spend hours a week on modules, which might cause mild frustration or time-management stress. However, the study will provide participants with free access to an effective clinical tool and help the university improve student mental health services.
True or False: In a risk-benefit analysis of this study, the potential benefit of free clinical tools for the participants and improved services for the university can be directly compared using a standardized, objective mathematical formula to determine whether they outweigh the participants' mild frustration and stress.
An institutional review board (IRB) is evaluating three proposed psychological studies. Analyze the risk-benefit balance of each study, and arrange them in order from the most ethically justifiable (where potential benefits most clearly outweigh risks) to the least ethically justifiable (where risks most clearly outweigh potential benefits).
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According to ethical guidelines in psychological research, which of the following is an unacceptable motivation for subjecting participants to risks such as pain, fear, or embarrassment?
Ethical guidelines dictate that psychologists may never subject participants to psychological risks, such as fear or embarrassment, regardless of the study's potential scientific value.
Match each research scenario with the ethical category that best describes the researcher's motivation or justification for the risks involved.
An Institutional Review Board (IRB) is evaluating three research proposals that each involve subjecting participants to significant embarrassment. Based on the ethical guidelines for research motivations, arrange these justifications in order from the least ethically justifiable (1) to the most ethically justifiable (3).
Suppose you are designing a psychological study that involves subjecting participants to significant social embarrassment. To ensure the study is ethically justifiable, which of the following 'Research Objectives' would you construct to move the study beyond personal curiosity and toward a substantial scientific contribution?
Match each factor of psychological research with the ethical role it plays according to the guidelines on research motivations.
An Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviews a study where participants are misled into believing they have failed an important test so the researcher can observe the facial expressions of disappointed people. The board rejects this proposal, noting that it is ethically unacceptable to subject participants to embarrassment solely to satisfy a researcher's _____.
According to psychological research ethics, obtaining informed consent from participants makes it ethically acceptable to subject them to mild fear or embarrassment, even if the study has no expected scientific or societal benefits and is driven solely by the researcher's curiosity.
Dr. Kim is personally fascinated by how people react to unexpected frights and wants to design a study where participants are suddenly exposed to a terrifyingly loud noise. Because this study subjects participants to fear, Dr. Kim is informed by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) that she cannot proceed with this research if her only motivation is to satisfy her own personal ____.
A researcher wants to study psychological distress but starts with a design driven entirely by personal curiosity. Arrange the steps the researcher should take to transition their project from an ethically unacceptable proposal to an ethically justifiable study, from first (1) to last (4).