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A* Model answer in response to the ethics controversy
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A-level WJEC psychology - essay response to the ethics controversy within psychology. Fully written essay
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‘Psychologists endeavour to make sure that there are minimal ethicalcosts of their research on humans.’
Discuss the extent to which you agree with this statement. [25]
Some may agree with the statement that ‘Psychologists endeavour to ensure there are minimal
ethical costs of their research on humans’ as sometimes the ethical costs are unpredictable and
only arise once the study is in motion. One significant example of this stems from Milgram’s 1963
study of obedience. In this study, the researcher deceived his participants (pps) as he did not
reveal the true aims of his study to them - pps were informed the study was investigating ‘learning
and memory’ when in fact it was a study of ‘obedience to authority’. For this study, deception can
be justified as demand characteristics and social desirability bias may have intervened with the
findings, invalidating them - the pps may have proceeded to the maximum 450 volts, obeying the
authoritative figure as a way of ‘helping’ the researchers by being obedient. Milgram knew this
was the case, thus ensured to minimise ethical costs to his pps by debriefing them at the end of
his study by revealing his true aims. He also reconciled them with the other ‘participant’ known as
the ‘learner’ (this was the confederate). This study was key to establishing the importance of
authority in the sense that we now understand what a huge influence people in authority have over
society and thus those authoritative individuals are now made aware they should not abuse their
power. Pps in the study were also asked to complete a questionnaire at the end to which they
stated they had learnt something of a personal significance and that further studies like this
should take place, indicating that sometimes the social benefits do outweigh the ethical costs, but
also that psychologists do ensure to minimise ethical costs to humans as those in this study were
happy for similar research to be conducted.
Further supporting evidence of this can be seen by the vague nature of the ethical guideline of
‘deception’. Ethical guidelines suggest that researchers should avoid using deception as it is the
right of the pps to know what their role in a study is. However, they also allow the use of
deception, so long as the pps are debriefed (informed of the true aims and their involvement) at
the end of the study, highlighting that it can, in fact, be acceptable to deceive pps. This supports
the claim that Milgram did all he could to minimise the ethical costs of his research as he
registered that this was an ethical concern, but overcame it by following the guidelines and
debriefing his pps, similar to what other researchers in the field do, highlighting that they do
endeavour to minimise ethical costs.
However, others might argue that some researchers do not follow all measures to ensure minimal
ethical costs are experienced. One example of this is the work of Donald Hebb, who’s research is
suspected to have been used in the military for interrogation techniques. Hebb’s pps were
deprived of their senses to the point where they experienced hallucinations, for example. A further
study by Watson (1980) found that those deprived of their senses would be susceptible to
propaganda. This highly suggests that some psychologists do not aim to reduce the risk of ethical
costs experienced by their pps as this is an example of how researchers hold a study in the hopes
of causing an unethical outcome - if they wanted to minimise ethical costs as much as possible,
why would they expect something unethical to happen for their benefit?
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