Debriefing

Unjustifiable Research Harm

APA Ethics Code

Humane Care and Use of Animals in Research

Beneficiaries of Psychological Research

Unethical Research Motivations

Risks and Benefits to Research Participants

Risks and Benefits to Science and Society

Ethical Implications of the Milgram Experiment

Why can the ethical evaluation of weighing a study's risks against its benefits be particularly challenging for psychological researchers?

A psychological study can be considered ethically acceptable even when the research participants themselves bear most of the risks, as long as the potential benefits to the broader scientific community or society are judged to sufficiently outweigh those risks.

A researcher proposes a study to test if mild electric shocks can improve concentration in students with ADHD. To evaluate the ethics of this study, match each study element to its corresponding category in a risk-benefit analysis.

A researcher is evaluating the ethicality of a study on how social isolation affects mental health. Arrange the following steps in the logical order required to effectively weigh the potential risks of the study against its potential benefits.

A researcher is developing a study to investigate the impact of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance in emergency room doctors. The study requires participants to stay awake for $36$ hours while performing simulated surgical tasks. A review committee is concerned that the high risk of physical exhaustion outweighs the scientific benefits. Which of the following newly proposed research frameworks best synthesizes a solution to achieve an ethical balance?

In the process of weighing risks against benefits, different groups are affected in different ways. Match each entity involved in psychological research to the role it typically plays in this ethical evaluation.

Because the potential risks to individual participants and the potential benefits to the scientific community are not measured in the same units, the process of deciding if a study is ethically justified requires an inherently subjective ethical _____.

In psychological research ethics, the foundational principle states that a study is considered ethical only when its potential _____ outweigh its potential risks.

Dr. Aris is designing a study to evaluate a new, intensive online mindfulness program for reducing anxiety in college students. The program requires participants to spend $10$ hours a week on modules, which might cause mild frustration or time-management stress. However, the study will provide participants with free access to an effective clinical tool and help the university improve student mental health services.

True or False: In a risk-benefit analysis of this study, the potential benefit of free clinical tools for the participants and improved services for the university can be directly compared using a standardized, objective mathematical formula to determine whether they outweigh the participants' mild frustration and stress.

An institutional review board (IRB) is evaluating three proposed psychological studies. Analyze the risk-benefit balance of each study, and arrange them in order from the most ethically justifiable (where potential benefits most clearly outweigh risks) to the least ethically justifiable (where risks most clearly outweigh potential benefits).