As the law of the BPS has only just been passed in 1985 there have been many previous studies carried out by psychologist which have made many break troughs in human behaviour, although there have also been some ethical problems toward subjects as the BPS laws had not been followed. One psychologist named Zimbardo carried put an experiment where the right to with drawl seemed almost impossible to subjects. There mental state had been confused they had really taken on the roles of prisoner and guard and so did not want to leave, also they could not cope outside the prison it took over their lives. In this experiment there was no informed consent as the subjects weren’t informed on what exactly they had to do because this would have spoiled the experiment due to demand characteristics. There were problems with debriefing as after the experiment subjects were not left in the same state of mind that they had when they entered. Above all of these ethic guidelines the biggest concern of all was that this experiment totally disregarded the protection of its participants, so much so that it wasn’t until mental breakdown of some subjects the experiment was counselled.
The next psychologist I looked at was Milgram. His ethical problems against the BPS code included deception as the subjects were deliberately deceived into thinking his role of teacher was given randomly where as in fact both the subject and actor were given teacher roles, only the actor played the role of learner. This study went against the right to withdraw as it was found that if the actor and teacher wanted to stop the experimenter would persuade the teacher to continue making teacher feel obliged to continues saying” we take full responsibility for your actions.”
The psychologist Paliavin did an experiment concerning observation here the code was broken as psychologist are expected to respects subjects privacy in this experiment psychologists are aware of subjects at all times as here psychologist is looking for reactions so no privacy of individuals available. In this experiment there is no informed consent as subjects were not informed as to what the study involved all they new they were to get on a particular train. There was no total protection to participants as they could have had serious after effects from a situation where someone collapses on a train because of the shock and not knowing what to do.
The experiment to do with child aggression by Ross and Ross and Bandura had little or no informed consent parent of this study were unaware of all the aggress ional behaviour their child would receive if in a particular group. There was also no protection to participants as children who were affected aggressively could be affected in the future to fell its right to act aggressively to others there is also the ethical problem of not experimenting on those children under the age of 16.
An experiment by Schatchter and Singer on the emotional state of humans broke the ethical guideline of participant protection as it is worrying to inject adrenaline into people it could affect then medically. Also the idea of bringing up bad memories before injection and seeing emotion after could affect people badly as the subject may be tortured by this memory already. There is also the problem about debriefing subjects were not informed exactly that they were doing in the experiment and may be less inclined to do the experiment if aware. There was also a problem with deception as subjects were asked if they would mind being injected with vitamins i.e. syproxin where as they were actually injected with adrenaline or a placebo (an inactive or fake treatment) this may affect subjects physically.
Lang and Lazovick did a study where they looked at people’s phobias in particular snake phobia. Here the code of protecting participants is broken as subjects continually being exposed to there fears which they may not have wanted to confront to vigorously but obliged to because there in experimental conditions which also breaks the right to withdraw code.
All in all not too many post 1985 BPS code broke the rule of confidentiality rule although in one experiment by LaPiere the race of two subjects were exposed.
We are aware classical studies breaking the ethical guidelines although I don’t believe it was all in vain as with all aspects of life we do evolve. If such unethical experiments hadn’t taken place psychologists would never have created the BPS code and we may still live in a world where we understand less about ourselves as human beings.
In respect to those who have suffered I believe that it depends on the situation. If subjects are willing to be studied on for the greater good and are not affected too brutally then this is positively acceptable. Studies should be carried out in moderation as I don’t tolerate the hypocritical ideas of hurting humans. When it is a psychologist purpose to help human life and make it better. I would not tolerate such behaviour like in Zimbardos study where subjects became mentally affected. We may have been able to improve prisons to a certain extent but this is not good enough for the reoccurring torture these subjects received after the experiment. I don’t believe that it is up to the subjects if anything bad happens to then. It’s not entirely their own fault for going into the experiment when anyone including the psychologist themselve’s know entirely what will happen. Thus they do an experiment there for if something bad happens to a subject they are not aware if they were they would be less inclined to do so. Although I do believe that researchers have a good deal of responsibility to their subjects as it is them that set up the experiment so they should have certain control. This is what’s so good about the BPS code this is respecting the subjects but at the same time allowing the subjects to understand they are the ones that have joined in the experiment. That is what I believe is a real ethical experiment to help human life.
