Discuss the ethical issues in the use of non-human animals in research in psychology
The BPS has guidelines governing the use of animals in psychological research; requiring that all animals be provided with adequate housing and eating patterns. The Animal Welfare Act requires researchers to avoid causing stress and lasting harm or pain to animals. Furthermore, the Animals Scientific Procedures Act (1986) regulates and permits the use of lab animals in the UK. However, it can be argued that such Acts only protect researchers from prosecution, rather than the animals themselves.
Harlow carried out an unethical study when he took infant monkeys from their mothers and put them alone in a stainless steel cage to sever the maternal bond. Once the bond was broken, he but two ‘mothers’ in the cage; one made of wire and one of cloth. The wire one provided no comfort, but did have a milk bottle attached to it, and the cloth mother had no food but did provide comfort and warmth. The baby chimp spent most of its time with the cloth mother. These results benefitted midwives and doctors, and consequently humans in general because they found that maternal bonds could be strengthened through instant skin-to-skin contact from birth. However, how can we say that human babies will act the same, seeing as though their bonds wouldn’t have been broken with the mothers in the first place? Separating the monkeys from their mothers at so young is clearly unethical, as many of them were harmed psychologically for the long term, let alone the fact that they were unable to verbally give consent to take part in the experiment, or withdraw if they didn’t want to continue.
