Ethics Flashcards
Monster Study
Researchers tried to induce a stutter in orphaned children; serious psychological reprecussions
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Study claiming to be giving free healthcare to African American men
Really studying the natural progression of untreated syphilis
Informed Consent: Full Information
Patients must be told everything about the experiment so that they can make a rationale decision about participation
Informed consent: freedom of choice
participation must be voluntary, without coercion
Harms and Benefits
Research should cause no harm
If there is harm, potential benefits must outweigh this
Harm must be minimized (e.g., small population size)
Withholding benefits in clinical trials
- Are control groups harmed by withholding treatment
- Inflexible treatment (clinician cannot adapt using intuition/judgement)
- Randomization (lack of choice of treatments for clients)
- Narrow inclusion criteria (excludes co-morbid patients)
- Referrals at termination
Privacy
A participants right not to provide information to a researcher if they feels its intrusive
Confidentiality
Data must be anonymous and identified data should only be available to a few people
Three levels of ethics review
Exempt (publicly available data; research-like activities; educational activities)
Expedited (usually reserved for modification to an existing study)
Full review (new study)
Fraud
intentional efforts to deceive and misrepresent
2% of self-reports falsified; 14% asking colleagues
Sir Cyril Burt
Falsified data trying to prove the heritability of IQ (.770, 0.771, 0.771)
Questionable research practices
Changing hypotheses to fit the data, reporting only favourable results, selecting only certain studies in lit review, citing from secondary sources, incorrectly citing, failing to correct errors after publication
Reproducibility project
Original study effect size verses replication effect size
80% larger in original
