Ethics:
Human research
BPS principles:
Watson and Raynor:
Integrity: Obtain informed or valid consent, offer a debrief
Respect: The right to withdraw, avoiding deceit
Responsibility: Maintaining privacy, protection from physical/psychological harm
Competence: Confidentiality, maximise benefits & minimise harm, safeguarding children & those who lack the capacity to make decisions etc.
Integrity: Albert was only 9 months old and therefore informed consent could not be gathered. His mother did give consent but her understanding of the experiment may have been limited.
Animal research
Respect: Albert was unable to withdraw and his mother may not have been told the full extent of the procedure. Albert's mother eventually did remove him from the experiment but the phobia had already been established.
BPS principles
Responsibility: Albert's true identity remained hidden. He did however suffer extreme amounts of psychological harm as he became distressed and cred upon hearing the banging. Albert was never unconditioned so therefore he suffered more harm
Alternatives: Previous work, video record or computer simulations should be used instead if possible
Competence: Albert suffered lots of harm yet it can be argued that the implications of the findings out weigh this as we can extrapolate treatments and causes of phobias.
Species choice: Only species which are scientifically and ethically suitable should be used
Ivan Pavlova
He used woggo wogggo doggos to test conditioning.
This type of research comes with issues
Animal number: The smallest number of animals needed should be used
Procedures: All the procedures in the experiment should be be set so suffering and damage is minimised as much as possible
Sources: Only animals sourced from high quality designated breeders should be used
Animal care: When the animals are not being studied, the researchers are responsible for their conditions
Disposing: If the animals can be donated for other studies or for breeding then they should. If the animals need to be killed then it should be as humanely and painlessly as possible
Use of animals instead of humans
Extraneous variables in animals can be easier to control
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Replacing the use of animals: research of this manner had never been done so there were no previous records
Number of animals: OG only 1
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The dogs were kept in good conditions and were fed as part of the exp