What is Ethics?

Ethics (derived from the Greek word ἦθος ethos, meaning “custom”) is a branch of philosophy that delves into the exploration of morality. This involves the formulation of thought frameworks from which moral principles can be deduced (a type of theory). In contrast, morality consists of guidelines that stem from adopting ethical principles (e.g., “do not kill”).

It’s important to note that wrongdoing and distortions often result from a skewed moral perspective—misinterpreting ethical principles. For instance, within our culture, most people would agree on a point.

They would agree that leading a virtuous life is preferable to leading an immoral one. Yet, a skewed moral outlook might lead someone to believe that if a relative is offended, killing is justified.

Ethical theories can be categorized based on the scope of moral norms:

How Are Ethical Theories Classified?

• Objectivist theories assert the presence of a universal and optimal ethical system.
• Subjectivist theories maintain that ethics varies according to the creating group, cultural context, and historical period. There’s no single, definitive ethical system.

They can also be classified by the source of moral norms.

• Naturalism: Ethics evolves with societal progress and draws from the natural environment.
• Antinaturalism: Ethics stems from divine origins.
• Emotivism: Ethics isn’t derived from a specific source but rather a reflection of human psyche.

Furthermore, they can be grouped by their assessment of human behavior.

• Motivism: Actions driven by good intentions are ethical, regardless of outcomes.
• Effectivism: Actions producing positive results are ethical, regardless of intent.
• Nominalism: It considers actions aligning with established rules ethical, irrespective of personal beliefs.

It’s worth mentioning that Polish law is rigorous—sentences can be imposed even for unintentional criminal acts. In contrast, contemporary psychology aligns with a subjectivist-emotivist-effectivist stance, akin to ancient Epicurean philosophy.

In Poland, the legal system hasn’t fully met scientific ethical standards. However, the Polish Psychological Association introduced the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct for Psychologists in 1991. Violating this code could lead to a Peer Court trial, potentially resulting in exclusion from the Association and public disclosure.

What Are Psychologists’ Ethical Responsibilities as Researchers?

Psychologists take on various roles; here, I’m focusing on their role as experimenters. Thus, their responsibilities include:

1. Foreseeing research consequences and publishing results responsibly. For example, it’s unethical to publish research that offends specific ethnic or professional groups, potentially causing harm.
2. Upholding reliability in research, which is self-explanatory.
3. Assuming responsibility for the team. If issues arise due to an assistant’s actions, the trial’s leader is accountable, emphasizing the need for shared responsibility.
4. Meticulously selecting participants—although demanding, ethics requires avoiding shortcuts, like examining only students, as they don’t represent a diverse sample.
5. Obtaining informed consent, ensuring participants are aware of the study’s procedures and their rights before participation.
6. Safeguarding personal data—disclosure is legally prosecuted, reinforcing the need for data protection.
7. Impartiality—accounting for and analyzing zero scores, which may not be glamorous but remain valid results.
8. Respecting copyright laws, akin to point 6. Plagiarism is easily detectable and punishable, given the clear evidence.
9. Providing constructive criticism while reviewing colleagues’ work. Highlighting errors is crucial, as publication mistakes can have a greater impact than disagreements with fellow lab members.

What Are the Particularly Challenging Aspects of Research Activities?

1. Misleading participants.

According to the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, deception in research is only justified under specific conditions. These conditions require the deception to carry significant scientific, educational, or applied value, and no effective non-deceptive alternative must exist. And researchers must never use it when participants would reasonably expect physical pain or severe emotional distress.

As per the Ethical Principles in Research Conduct with Human Participants (EPCRHP), based on American standards, there are 5 situations where experimental deception is deemed acceptable. These situations include the following.

a) Addressing a pressing issue — for instance, if we study 60 individuals with schizophrenia, we might have the chance to enhance the lives of the 60 million who share this condition;

b) Research that necessitates disguising its true purpose;

c) When dealing with a “good person tested” per Orne — someone who cooperates so effectively with the experimenter that they might confirm the research hypothesis by guessing it;

d) The chance to reverse the outcome after subjects receive full information;

e) Reasonable assumptions that the stress from study deception won’t harm the participant’s well-being — discretionary, yet generally determinable. For instance, telling someone they have HIV, only to retract it 10 minutes later, is unethical.

However, if we instruct a subject to draw a beautiful tree, they might not be greatly affected. This is especially true if the real focus was on the colors chosen, which is then revealed.

2. Exposing participants to suffering, embarrassment, fear of judgment, and reduced self-esteem.

Brzeziński offers ways to navigate this:

a) Ex-post facto research — drawing insights from previously collected data. It’s low in stress but compromises experimental control.

b) Utilizing specialized groups who knowingly agree to the research’s risks. Issue: sample might not be representative.

c) Following Bernscheid: a preliminary interview. This method involves gauging what percentage of the population would participate despite risks. If enough agree, proceed; otherwise, adapt the procedure.

What Are the Facts and Misconceptions About Research Harm?

Facts and misconceptions about the harmfulness of experimental research exist. Based on studies by McKinney, Milgram, Abrahams, Ring, Wallstone, Corey, Ross, Lepper, and Holmes, several findings emerge.

• No psychological experiments are known to have caused severe personality disorders in a large number of individuals.
• Misrepresentation for research purposes doesn’t generally lead to a loss of trust.
• Subjects who face no negative consequences don’t rate the experiment worse after being informed of the deception.
• It’s crucial to consider that participants downplay their harm.

Research by Epstein, Suedfeld, Silverstein, Sullivan, Deiker, Farr, Seaver, Shulman, and Berman indicates the following.

• Psychologists tend to be more critical of questioned experiments compared to subjects.
• The experiment’s presentation influences participants’ willingness to partake; a comprehensive description tends to yield more critical evaluations.
• 19-60% of respondents decline participation in “unpleasant” experiments.
• Subjects assess deceptive treatments based on outcomes.
• Participants expect experimenters to shield themselves from unexpected psychological stress and not misuse personal data.

What Is the Seminal Research on Ethics in 20th-Century Experimental Psychology?

Now, onto the most contentious experiments in 20th-century experimental psychology:

1. 1920s: Watson conducted the “Little Albert” experiment. This involved conditioning an 11-month-old orphan to fear a white rat to demonstrate anxiety response triggering (classical conditioning) at Johns Hopkins University.

Within 17 days, his fear extended to a rabbit, dog, mink fur, and even a Santa Claus-clad Watson.

This experiment was considered unethical due to several factors.

• Lack of informed or parental consent
• Inhumanity — instilling fear without consent
• Absence of systematic desensitization post-experiment — a procedure to alleviate anxiety similar to its induction, by pairing anxiety stimulus with pleasant ones. The boy was sent home without such intervention.

2. 1959: Studying Fear of Death in Recruits:

In this experiment, recruits were mistakenly informed of “an injection followed by death in half an hour.” Their reactions were subsequently observed.

3. The 60s:

• Encouragement of Criminal Behavior 
• Implying Subjects’ Lack of Intelligence or Homosexual Tendencies
• Prompting Locust Consumption
• Observing Physiological Needs — e.g., a “intelligence test” where subjects were locked in an empty room with just a hole and a hidden ball. Retrieving the ball took 6 hours, and the method was far from subtle.

4. Piliavin and Rodin (1969) — The Good Samaritan Study.

This study involved theological seminary students assigned to give a short speech in another building. In the aisle sat an ailing assistant. Yet only 63% of hurried students and 10% of non-hurried ones stopped to help.

The speech’s topic and respondents’ religiosity didn’t alter the results. The study was ethically questionable, as it left participants feeling foolish. The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches compassion and kindness.

What Do Milgram, Schachter, and Later Studies Reveal?

5. Milgram (1963) — Research on Obedience to Authority.

I mentioned this study earlier on the website and won’t repeat it here. Regardless, critics considered it unethical for multiple reasons, including its influence on mass imagination. During the 90s, an individual impersonated a policeman, urging fast-food bosses to harass employees, exploiting Milgram’s study for malicious purposes.

6. Schachter and Singer (1962) — Administered Epinephrine to Study Subjects.

Under the pretext of vitamin testing, subjects received epinephrine injections. The study explored the link between well-being and physiological arousal. Key findings were that offensive questionnaires infuriated subjects, providing an “unemotional” explanation reduced anger, and different explanations altered emotional experiences.

7. Sherif (1935) and Asch (1952) — Group Pressure on Attitudes.

These experiments used perceptual tests involving lines, where confederates insisted on incorrect answers. Researchers studied the impact of group conformity, with some participants swayed by discussions.

According to Asch (1955), published in Scientific American, a remarkable finding was reported. Roughly a third of participants’ responses conformed to the group’s incorrect answer across trials, even when the correct answer was visually obvious. The study caused stress and frustration, leading to unethical outcomes in certain cases.

8. Zimbardo (1973) — Role-Playing Experiment (a.k.a. Stanford Prison Experiment).

In a staged prison scenario, students played roles of guards and prisoners for 14 days. Researchers halted the study after 6 days due to increasing violence. The documentary “Silent Fury” depicts this experiment, and you can view it online.

What Is the Seminal Research on the Nature of Ethics?

Lastly, let’s discuss further the research on the nature of ethics. We will focus on the factors influencing its formation, based on psychological studies.

1. Conditioning.

Fickerauer: Children with a high risk of engaging in criminal behavior visited prisons, where they had exhausting meetings with inmates. After 6 months, these children showed a higher tendency to commit crimes than others.

Unfortunately, this attempt to educate them about the dangers of misconduct backfired. Instead of learning from the experience, they started imitating the behavior they witnessed, without considering the consequences.

According to Petrosino, Turpin-Petrosino, and Buehler (2003), a systematic review of “Scared Straight”-style prison-visit programs yielded specific results. They found that these programs consistently increased, rather than decreased, subsequent juvenile offending when compared to no intervention at all.

2. Group / Crowd Psychology.

Rehm, Steinleitner, Lillie (1987): Student teams of five played handball matches. One team always wore matching orange uniforms, while the other team played in their regular clothes.

Interestingly, the children in the same uniforms played more aggressively. A relevant recommendation to consider is the German film “Die Welle” from 2008. This film portrays a real experiment that was conducted in a German high school.

3. Situational Factors.

Zimbardo (1970): Research on de-individuation involving female students who were asked to administer electrical shocks to their friends. In the simulation, Group 1 wore aprons and hoods under dim light. Meanwhile, Group 2 wore their own clothes, had ID badges, and were under bright lighting.

Group 1 displayed more aggression, and the shocks they administered were both longer and more intense than in Group 2. This illustrates that anonymity levels influence behavior towards others, a phenomenon evident in today’s online interactions.

What Do Anonymity and Environment Studies Show?

Dodd (1985): “Robbers in the Classroom experiment.” Respondents were questioned about their actions if they became invisible with no risk of detection. More than half admitted they would engage in illegal or deviant behavior (students as frequently as prisoners).

Carlsmith, Andersen (1979) “Hot Summer Phenomenon”: As temperatures rise, the frequency of street riots and acts of violence increases. This trend is particularly noticeable in countries like Poland, where varying sunlight exposure and season length play a role.

In places where sunshine dominates from April to October, late summer often witnesses protests and unrest. This phenomenon remains unexplained.