Every experiment should always be considerate towards its participants, experimenters and if applicable an audience. The research shouldn't be offensive towards participants and shouldn't threaten a person's health well being or dignity. It is difficult to classify offence and dignity but big brother puts its participants in obviously undignified situations such as in big brother 5 when contestants had to drag themselves through an assault course containing animal carcasses, tar and feathers. Another more shocking incident was again in big brother 5, vegetarian Michelle (pictured) had to drink a milkshake containing raw fish to prevent to housemates loosing £15,000 prize money. This put her under immense psychological pressure and in effect was a form of emotional black mail, this breach of human rights contained no consideration for her well-being and Michelle's personal moral principles.
Another basic principle, which is vital for experimenters to abide by in planning an experiment, is deception. All participants must be fully informed about the experiment and every aspect that takes place. However because Big Brother is classed as "reality television" for all contestants to know what will occur would provide uninteresting viewing. For example in big brother 6 the housemates were told that Anthony, Craig and Kemal were up for eviction when in fact Makousi, Vanessa, Derek, Science, Eugene and Orla could possibly leave the house after the two house mates with the highest amount of public votes are announced to the house, then the housemates chose who they wished to leave the house.
When housemates are put under considerable amounts of stress they may become emotionally unstable. On many occasions within big brother housemates have asked big brother is they could leave the house immediately, they are discouraged from this and asked to think it over for a day by the voice over portraying big brother. Surely this is denying the housemates their right to withdraw from the experiment? A participant’s right to withdraw is important in a psychology experiment because if a participants isn’t comfortable with the situation they should be allowed to withdraw to maintain the psychological wellbeing. An example of this in big brother is when Derek entered the diary room and asked if he could leave immediately and he was answered by an obviously pre-written statement saying “Big Brothers asks you to sleep on it and think about your decision. Then come to the diary room in the morning” This is a rejection of a request to withdraw from an experiment.
Another regulation which big brother subjects to deliberation is confidentiality. The basic idea of big brother doesn’t comply with confidentiality which states any observations made are strictly between the observer and participants. Big brother is broadcast live 24 hours a day therefore nothing that the housemates do or say is confidential. However to prevent any comments which may offend being broadcast the live big brother is delayed by 10 minutes to allow any comments to be blurred out. Yet this is a minimal amount of confidentiality for the participants therefore I class this as another regulation broken by big brother.
Although some regulations have be obviously ignored in the creation of this reality television program some have been abided by. Wherever possible consent should be got from all participants. This regulation has been abided by because when the participants applied to be part of this game show they knew what it entailed. Debriefing always occurs as well. If a house mate is on a secret mission for big brother the other housemates always find out what was happening. For example when Makousi was helping the new housemates in the secret garden by steeling food and clothing for Kinga, Eugene and Orla housemates thought Makousi was being selfish and steeling food and alcohol just for herself however when the new housemates entered the house big brother explain what had been happening to the other housemates.
Big brother has been in the press concerning its moral standards and ethical issues, there have been many deliberations of whether it should be broadcast on television. Big brother does abide by some of the British Psychological Societies guidelines yet it also breaks some. It is difficult to create a program consisting of real people and abiding by all these principles as it would not provide exciting viewing yet channel four still registers a lot of complaints about the program every year. However If this reality television show is so appallingly wrong then why are we so gripped by the characters and relationships within the house and not standing up for our moral and ethical principles?
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