Sample Response

There are several ethical considerations that researchers must address when carrying out research. In the Sociocultural approach psychologists study groups of people. This leads to specific problems. Two ethical considerations are undue stress or harm and deception.

Protection from undue stress or harm is the most important of all ethical considerations. "Undue stress" refers to any stress that would be more than a participant would encounter in everyday life. Simple discomfort or embarrassment is not "undue stress or harm." But several of the early studies in social psychology did cause great stress for the individual. In addition, the person must be able to leave the experiment in the same condition in which s/he arrived. In order to avoid this, psychologists must submit their research proposals to an ethics committee for approval.  Even with this step, sometimes the study may result in unexpected levels of stress.

A classic study that caused great stress to the participants was the Stanford Prison Study. In this study, Zimbardo randomly allocated participants to the position of either a guard or a prisoner. The guards worked shifts, but the prisoners stayed in the prison. Over time, Zimbardo found that the guards became more and more aggressive against the prisoners and the prisoners were submissive and often withdrawn. The prisoners demonstrated high levels of stress, even breaking down emotionally. This is a clear example of undue stress – that is, the level of stress is higher than they would experience on a day to day basis. In addition, the prisoners felt that they could not leave the experiment, which also would lead to higher levels of stress. Although the participants were debriefed and Zimbardo followed up with the participants with regard to their health after the study, there are still concerns about the long-term effects of the experience on the participants.

Deception means that the researcher either does not reveal the true aim of the study to the participants, or the participant is intentionally misinformed about the experiment.   Deception is often used in psychology as a way to avoid demand characteristics by making sure that the participants do not know the goal of the study. In addition, the use of deception is sometimes necessary to study something that could not be studied otherwise – for example, if participants knew that a situation is staged or that confederates are not telling the truth, then the experiment would not make any sense. It would not test what it wanted to test and therefore lack validity.

Asch carried out a study on conformity. In order to do this, he told his participants that they were taking part in a study of visual testing. If he had said that this was a test of conformity, it would not have been possible to really test conformity. There was a control group that showed that people made no mistakes when tested alone on matching the length of lines. In the experimental condition, the participant was seated with five confederates. These people were in on the study and were playing a role. One by one the participants were asked to state which line matched the line on the original card; however, after a few trials, the confederates said the wrong line. This is an example of the second type of conformity where the participants are actively misinformed during the experiment. Asch found that about 70% of the participants conformed at least once, even though they may have known that the answer was incorrect. They later said that they did this to fit in or because they doubted themselves.

Ethics are not always black and white. In Zimbardo’s study, an ethics board had approved the experiment. It is not always possible to predict what will happen in an experiment. In Asch’s study, there may have been some feelings of embarrassment, but there was no serious stress or harm caused to the participants. Another issue is whether there was an alternative way for Zimbardo or Asch to conduct their research that would have been more ethical. It is important for researchers to consider alternatives. Even though Zimbardo’s and Asch’s studies are not naturalistic, they are realistic and thus have ecological validity. Even though lines may not be important to people, being correct in a psychological study is. By creating experiments that are not realistic, there is the problem that we might not get valid results. This is why a cost-benefit analysis is important when considering ethics.

Finally, the question of ethics is very complex. Even though there are several different ethical considerations, they are intertwined. Using deception means that the participants are not fully informed, and thus the question of consent is problematic. Debriefing is essential when using deception as the true goals of the experiment should be explained and, in the case where there is undue stress or harm, the participant should receive guidance from the researcher. In Zimbardo’s study, the undue stress was caused by the inability to leave the experiment – which is also one of the rights of participants. However, if prisoners can just leave, then it’s not really a prison.

Ethics are an important consideration in any study and serious ethical violations compromise the research. High levels of stress may also influence a participant’s behavior in ways that may influence the outcome of the study. Today the sociocultural approach is much more aware of ethical considerations when conducting research.

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