What's Ethical?

In my social psychology class yesterday we had a really interesting discussion on ethics in research. We talked about some controversial studies that have occurred throughout the years, probably the most infamous of which are the Milgram studies performed in the 1960s. I won't give a lot of background, but the link is there for your information.

In short, the studies were performed looking at how obedient people will be to authority figures, even while causing another person severe pain. The premise for the experiment coming from how people could carry out the atrocities under the Nazi regime during WWII. Even within the immediate vicinity of the person being "electrocuted," people still administered shocks that were equivalent to fatal levels of voltage.

I kind of love the experiment. Yeah, it sounds terrible, but the interesting part about our discussion yesterday was how my professor was talking about how people respond to being deceived for the purposes of research. In his years and years of experience, he had only one adverse reaction and from the sound of it, it was actually the girl's problem and not the experiment. He said that 98% of the time, following debriefing people have little more to say than, "okay, do you think you can fool my roommate too?"

In the Milgram experiment, he followed up with psychological evaluations 6 and 18 months following the experiment and nobody had any lingering effects. In fact, more than 94% responded after the experiment that they were glad to participate and contribute to scientific findings, and that they would participate again knowing full well the intent of the experiment.

My professor also shared a story about how as a grad student he went to go observe a person undergo electroconvulsive therapy to treat a severe case of depression. Prior to the treatments, the elderly woman was catatonic; she would just curl up in a ball in her bed and moan all day long. When Dr. Ridge had seen her it was following a couple of sessions and she was chatty and for the most part pretty positive just before receiving the treatment. He watched as they placed the electrodes on her skull, and her body stiffen as they passed electricity through her brain. It didn't last more than a few minutes.

Apparently the woman had undergone treatment using many different methods including medications, counseling, everything else. In these severe cases, however, they have found that treatment to be effective without really knowing why. And his observation of the woman seemed to confirm what the therapist had said.

When he returned to school and was talking to his advisor about it, the teacher asked the student if he thought it was right that they should administer that kind of treatment. Dr. Ridge had responded 'yes' because the effects were so obviously in the positive, to which his advisor replied, "maybe so, but if they had strapped her down to a chair and beat her with a whip, would it be right to do it, even if it worked?"

Sometimes we get so caught up in the end result that we don't realize that maybe the methods to arrive at that point are entirely too inhumane. It's an interesting question when you consider punishment, or larger issues like war.