Hi James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca >>> "Mike Palij" <m...@nyu.edu> 01-Mar-11 7:35 AM >>> On Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:58:54 -0600, Jim Clark wrote: > Hi > What are the grounds for thinking that any of this is relevant to the >vast majority of psychological or other social science research?
The vagueness and lack of specificity of the question at first made think that if (a) the writer is not a researcher and/or (b) not doing research in the U.S., then he was unaware of the U.S. federal requirement to abide by the guidelines provided by the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Service and its Office for Human Research Protections. Any institution that receives federal funding, I believe, is required to have an ethics in research course, such as this model course: http://ori.hhs.gov/education/products/montana_round1/research_ethics.html JC: I guess "this" was too vague as much in your subsequent tutorial on the ethics industry had little to do with your original post, which focused on the harm being done in some cases of medical research. MIke continues: Then again, perhaps I was wrong in my initial interpretation, that is, the person is a researcher and/or knowledgable about research but the focus of his comments are elsewhere but where? And then Annette Taylor posted a response to which Jim Clark posted a response which clarifies some things. Quoting from his response: |My concern would be that we are teaching students that psychological |research needs just as much oversight as medical research, which is |certainly not a universal view among psychologists and other social scientists. To which I say, perhaps that is a view among some psychologists and social scientists but, on the basis of my experience I think this is a naive view. If someone is just having human subjects learn lists of nonsense syllables to see how much they can retain, then I think that there is little risk to the subject (outside of a certain amount of boredom). But this is not the type of research that is being promoted, funded, or advocated for in a discipline where the new interpretative frame is that psychology is concerned primarily with affective and cognitive neuroscience. If anything, as psychology continues to promote itself as being a part of neuroscience, the issues of medical research become increasingly relevant. JC: At least two of the links were to articles in APA journals on the dangers of IRBs, but I guess by naive authors. And surely there are innumerable other topics investigated by psychologists that are as innocuous as learning nonsense syllables? And if a psychologist does engage in "medical" or like invasive work, then I would see need for common ethics procedures. Also, I referred to "social scientists" in general, not just psychologists. The medical model for ethics is being applied to a huge spectrum of non-medical research. Mike goes on: As an experimental psychology whose primary training was in cognitive psychology but with a specialty in research methods and data analysis, I have worked in psychiatric research on the biological basis of anxiety disorders, behavioral studies of hyperactivity, autism, and conduct disorder as well as substance abuse research which focused on cocaine abuse and its treatment both with medication and cognitive-beharioral therapy -- I tried to get in some good old-fashioned experimental research on human memory in there whenever I could. The point is that a psychologist cannot predict where he or she might wind up and what kind of research (or clinically oriented work) they might do. In any case, I think it is important to know and understand the history and role of ethics in research, especially medical research because federal law concerning ethical conduct is most concerned with this type of reearch (we season the presentation of medical research with a little bit of Milgram, Zimbardo, DiCaro, Breuning, and others for those with a taste for psychology). Of course, YMMV. JC: As I said, ethical issues from medicine are being applied where they have little relevance, hence the "seasoning" with examples from psychology, and indeed examples that are debatable as to whether they actually put people at more risk of harm than they would experience in their everyday lives. And to associate these psychological studies with examples of medical research that caused harm or put people unwittingly at risk of harm runs the risk (virtually guarantees?) that students will come to view much psychological research (and economic research with humans, and political science research, and journalism, ....) as of the same ilk. Take care Jim --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=9090 or send a blank email to leave-9090-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
