Ethical guidelines

Codes of conduct In any psychological research whether it be with humans or animals, we must stick to the ethical guidelines. There are separate guidelines for the use of humans and the use of animals. If you were on the board of the British Psychological Society, what guidelines would you have for humans and what guidelines would you have for animals? Why? Write your ideas down under the title ‘ The importance of ethical guidelines in psychology’.

Human participants Consent/informed consent Deceit Debrief Protection from harm Withdrawal Social psychology is particularly susceptible to criticisms from an ethical viewpoint. Milgram/ Zimbardo are two social psychologists we will look at that have been criticised heavily for their lack of ethics. Some believe their studies should be discounted but as Milgram famously said: “Do the benefits to society outweigh the cost to the participant?”

Task Using your textbook and the internet, Make notes on the human ethical guidelines in whatever format you want. The important thing is you have a clear copy of the main guidelines with brief explanation of each in your notes.

Animals In Harlow's classic experiment, two groups of baby rhesus monkeys were removed from their mothers. In the first group, a terrycloth mother provided no food, while a wire mother did, in the form of an attached baby bottle containing milk. In the second group, a terrycloth mother provided food; the wire mother did not. It was found that the young monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether or not it provided them with food, and that the young monkeys chose the wire surrogate only when it provided food. Whenever a frightening stimulus was brought into the cage, the monkeys ran to the cloth mother for protection and comfort, no matter which mother provided them with food. This response decreased as the monkeys grew older. When the monkeys were placed in an unfamiliar room with their cloth surrogate, they clung to it until they felt secure enough to explore. Once they began to explore, they occasionally returned to the cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in an unfamiliar room without their cloth mothers acted very differently. They froze in fear and cried, crouched down, or sucked their thumbs. Some even ran from object to object, apparently searching for the cloth mother, as they cried and screamed. Monkeys placed in this situation with their wire mothers exhibited the same behaviour as the monkeys with no mother.

Harlow Once the monkeys reached an age where they could eat solid foods, they were separated from their cloth mothers for three days. When they were reunited with their mothers, they clung to them and did not venture off to explore as they had in previous situations. Harlow concluded from this that the need for contact comfort was stronger than the need to explore. The study found that monkeys who were raised with either a wire mother or a cloth mother gained weight at the same rate. However, the monkeys that had only a wire mother had trouble digesting the milk and suffered from diarrhea more frequently. Harlow's interpretation of this behaviour, which is still widely accepted, was that a lack of contact comfort is psychologically stressful to the monkeys. The importance of these findings is that they contradicted both the then common pedagogic advice of limiting or avoiding bodily contact in an attempt to avoid spoiling children.

Seligman- learned helplessness In part one of Seligman and Steve Maier's experiment, three groups of dogs were placed in harnesses. Group One dogs were simply put in the harnesses for a period of time and later released. Groups Two and Three consisted of "yoked pairs." A dog in Group 2 would be intentionally subjected to pain by being given electric shocks, which the dog could end by pressing a lever. A Group 3 dog was wired in parallel with a Group 2 dog, receiving shocks of identical intensity and duration, but his lever didn't stop the electric shocks. To a dog in Group 3, it seemed that the shock ended at random, because it was his paired dog in Group 2 that was causing it to stop. For Group 3 dogs, the shock was apparently "inescapable." Group 1 and Group 2 dogs quickly recovered from the experience, but Group 3 dogs learned to be helpless, and exhibited symptoms similar to chronic clinical depression. In part two of the Seligman and Maier experiment, these three groups of dogs were tested in a shuttle-box apparatus, in which the dogs could escape electric shocks by jumping over a low partition. For the most part, the Group 3 dogs, who had previously "learned" that nothing they did had any effect on the shocks, simply lay down passively and whined. Even though they could have easily escaped the shocks, the dogs didn't try.

Brady et al (1958) Aim- To investigate whether the stress of receiving electric shocks would lead to stress related illness in monkeys and whether this would interact with the degree of control over the shocks. Procedure- Monkeys received electric shocks to their feet at 20 sec intervals for periods of 6 hours at a time with 6 hours rest in between. They didnt know when they would get the shocks, it was not signalled they were coming. Monkeys were tested in pairs with the ´executive monkey´ being able to press a lever that would stall the shock for 20 seconds. The other monkey could not press the lever and still received all the shocks. What did Seligman find happened to his dogs when he conducted a similar study?

Findings After 23 days the ´executive monkeys´ started dying of gastric ulceration, the monkeys who had no control stayed healthy!

Task Write a few paragraphs on whether you believe animals should be used in psychological research. Use psychological studies to also help you write your argument. Come to an end conclusion. Hand in for marking.

Harlows monkeys Video you tube. fisRiwA