Running head: EVALUATE ETHICAL COMPLIANCE IN PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 1

Evaluate Ethical Compliance in Psychological Research

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Psychological research has been expanding and developing new ways of studying human

behavior, collecting knowledge and expanding our understanding of our nature. At the same

time, studies involving human subjects presented risks for violation of ethical research

guidelines, by pushing the limits of human experience (Kim, 2012). Throughout history, there

have been numerous studies that raised this concern, such as the Milgram Experiment of 1963. It

lacked informed consent from the participants and eventually raised the issue of protecting

human subjects. This paper examines ethical compliance in psychological research and

emphasizes the importance of ethics and professionalism by analyzing different psychological

studies.

Given that Milgram Experiment was one of the first that violated the rights of human

participants, I will begin with its analysis. The study was conducted by Stanley Milgram and

aimed to examine how people reacted to instructions from authorized individuals when the

actions conflicted with their personal safety and conscience (De Vos, 2009, p.226). The

participants were instructed to work in pairs and play different roles. In each pair, one of the

participants played a role of a learner, (a confederate of Milgrams) and was presented with

different questions from the teacher, the second person in the pair. Experimenters observed the

questioning process and asked teachers to apply an electric shock to learners when they gave

wrong answers to questions. The main problem in the research was ethical, as the more than a

half of teachers were instructed to apply electric shocks up to the level of 450 volts, which

could be very harmful. However, the learners were asked to provide mainly wrong questions,

and the teachers were not aware of this intention (Milgram, 2010). At the end of the study, the

experimenters revealed the deception. The research concluded that teachers were likely to obey
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instructions from authorized individuals, even when the health of learners supposedly was in

serious danger.

Analysis of this study suggests several ethical issues, such as deception, protection of

rights of human participants and the right to withdraw from the experiment. In terms of

deception of teachers, it is clear that they thought they shocked real people (Packer, 2008).

Next, the study placed its participants in extremely difficult conditions, which can lead to stress,

tension, and even potential for physical damage. Additionally, concerns were raised about the

right of participants to quit the experiment, as the teachers constantly persuaded them to

continue.

Despite the experiment was conducted before the introduction of the APA Code of Ethics

and implementation of Institutional Review Boards, it once again emphasizes the importance of

ethical compliance. For modern psychology researchers, elements of the APA Code of Ethics are

extremely important as they instruct the studies to be carried out in professional and safe manner.

For example, one of the APA principles of research ethics says that researchers should follow

informed-consent rules and ensure that participants are contributing to the study voluntarily and

understand all involved risks (American Psychological Association, 1992). According to this

principle, participants must be aware of their rights to quit, continue or protect their

confidentiality and health, giving them an opportunity to be an equal part of experiments.

Privacy and confidentiality, according to Lo (2012), are the central tenets of psychological

research. Therefore, they are relevant to modern studies. The methods of sharing data, the limits

of confidentiality and freedom of participants to choose information should be discussed before

the implementation of the study. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that psychologists today

should be aware of federal and state laws and regulations that might apply to their work. There
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are various laws prohibiting psychological research to conduct particular experiments. For

example, the Education Act (1994) limits, or, in certain cases, prohibits researchers from

including questions about sex and religion when working with children (APA). Given the broad

range of regulating laws in the United States, the best option for psychology researchers is to

study ethics rules by utilizing ethics resources. This way, they will be able to resolve ethical

dilemmas, know ethical responsibility and follow the law.

If I were a member of the IRB at Santa Clara, I would not have approved the replication

of Milgram study by Burger. One might think that this experiment will stimulate the new

research in the area of human obedience, but this did not occur. Despite the difficulties and the

courage of Burger to conduct a partial replication of the original study, it did not produce any

different outcomes and did not spark any new ideas in psychology (Burger, 2009). Instead, the

researcher had to deal with an enormous amount of different commentaries and controversy. My

main rationale for disapproving the Burgers study is ethical characteristics of the Milgram

paradigm. More specifically, now we have the Ethical Rules of the APA, which tell us that

researchers should honor rights of participants to privacy, confidentiality and the right to

withdraw the experiment. However, Milgrams paradigm clearly challenges these fundamental

rights and creates even more ethical dilemmas. Another rationale that I can include is the

infliction of increasing pain on an unwilling participant, a characteristic that is unacceptable in

modern psychological studies. Therefore, I would disapprove such experiment, because of

ethical non-compliance and little contribution to the field. As for me, I view following ethical

practices in my dissertation project work as a crucial element for success. It will allow me to

produce reliable, meaningful and relevant scholarly data that would not be a subject to ethical

issues.
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In psychological research, ethics is a key topic. It is relatively easy to sit on a chair and

watch as others rights are violated, but misconduct will not be missed. The study of Milgram was

conducted with apparent ethical violations and created ethical dilemmas, which continue to

produce some impact today. For young psychologists, however, it is important to minimize this

impact and use APA-approved principles of ethical research. In psychology, it is of utmost

importance to follow ethical guidelines because it is the only way to be truly professional and

produce meaningful work.

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References

American Psychological Association. (1992). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of

conduct. American psychologist, 47, 1597-1411.

Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today?. American

Psychologist, 64(1), 22-25.

De Vos, J. (2009). Now that you know, how do you feel? The Milgram Experiment and

psychologization. Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 7, 223-246.

Kim, W. O. (2012). Institutional review board (IRB) and ethical issues in clinical research.

Korean journal of anesthesiology, 62(1), 3-12.

Lo, B. (2012). Ethical Issues in clinical research: A practical guide. Lippincott Williams &

Wilkins.

Milgram, S. (2010). Behavioral study of obedience. Moral Psychology: Historical and

Contemporary Readings, edited by Thomas Nadelhoffer et al (Thomas, Malden, MA:

Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 179-186.

Packer, D. J. (2008). Identifying systematic disobedience in Milgram's obedience experiments: A

meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(4), 301-304.