All research needs to abide any law in a country where it is conducted, but that is often not enough to make sure that participants are treated with dignity and respect. Until ethics in psychological research has been “established” and certain rules codified, researchers often conducted studies which might have had lasting implications on their participants without necessary precautions being made. For that reason, certain (legally still not forcable) rules were introduced and ethical review processes established.
Needless to say,
Belmont report
National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in the 1978 issues a report on proper behavioural and biomedicinal research.
The three fundamental ethical principles for using any human subjects for research are:
Respect for persons: protecting the autonomy of all people and treating them with courtesy and respect and allowing for informed consent. Researchers must be truthful and conduct no deception;
Beneficence: The philosophy of “Do no harm” while maximizing benefits for the research project and minimizing risks to the research subjects; and
Justice: ensuring reasonable, non-exploitative, and well-considered procedures are administered fairly — the fair distribution of costs and benefits to potential research participants — and equally.
That is being put into practice through
Informed consent
Assessment of Risk and Benefits
Selection of Subjects
While scientist’s curiosity is a good reason to conduct a research, it is not a completely good reason to take away time from people. Thus any study requiring participation from human subjects should assess it’s benefits to justify the means.
As far as a concrete specific practices, there are certain rights each participant has and which should be followed:
Right to know about the purpose of the study (informed consent, debriefing, results sharing)
Right for fair treatment (right to quit the study at any point)
Right to remain anonymous
IRB reveiw
Institutional Review Board serves as a corrector of possible malpractices spiralling in any given institution. Although not always required by law, IRBs are a necessary element of a research institution to make sure that research is not only abiding by the law, but also by the Human Rights or the rules established by the Belmont report.
IRB is presented with a full documentation of a research proposal, including but not limited to:
topic and purpose of the study
research design and procedure
type of data to be collected (what type of personal data are you collecting, are you collecting any personal identificators)
location of data storage (where will you keep the data and how will you assure anonymity, how will you make sure you don’t lose it?)
description of a population (who will be in the sample and why)
sampling procedure (how will you sample and why)
informed consent (what is in and how to obtain)
risks and benefits for participants (debriefing)
appendices usually include:
list of responsible personal who will interact with participants
informed consent
recruitment adds, flyers etc.
any research material (such as images, questionnaires)
Some elements which IRB review will discuss include
Assessment if the study can’t be done in another way - if participants are lied to, is there really no other way where that is not possible? Does it need to take 8 hours?
Assessment is the study is worth it - if the benefits for the field are not significant, it might not get a pass (problems for replication studies)
Assessment if the research is just - it benefits all people the same, not only a certain minority
Assessment of research sample and possible misuse of power relationship - special protection of minorities, such as prisoners, children etc. Using prisoners for a prison related research is fine, selecting them for a study of visual acuity is probably bordering misuse of power.
Assessment of conflict of interest
Types of IRB review
There are generally three types of IRB review process.
Exempt - no review necessary (you still submit all the materials, but ask for an exempt based)
Expedited - fast review for studies posing no more than minimal risk for the subject
Full - full board review, usually for studies involving children, minorities or posing more than minimal risk
Which category falls on your research is based on specific criteria at a particular institution, but some rules are generally the same across the board:
Exempt from IRB review is research:
with non identifiable subjects
using existing and publicly available information
research in educational settings for the immediate benefit which will not lead to identification of individuals
research or demonstration for public benefit
food liking research in shopping malls :)
Expedited IRB review will be available for research:
posing no more than minimal risk
where identification of participants would not place them at risk
which is not classified
Other ethical issues
The ethical questions do not end with the study being over. Researchers are still responsible for the data to remain anonymous, but in some case also for the data “not to get lost” or not to get to the wrong hands. Researchers are also responsible for the correct interpretation of their results which is in concordance with the assessment of benefits - e.g. if the study was about visual acuity but the data is eventually used to asses racial differences based on the visual processing, that should require a new IRB review.
Correct reporting of results is also in accordance with the first rule of the Belomont report. The participants gave us their time and we should respect their decision and use their contribution in a meaningul manner. In that sense, not publishing collected data is sometimes also considered unethical, although there is a battle between not publishing collected data and publishing misinterpreted research results (as you never know, what data will you get).