Ethical Issues in Psychological Research - Essay Sample

Introduction

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people behave in different contexts and how they influence each other's thoughts (Stangor et al., 2014). This concept seeks to explain how imagined, or actual interactions with others influence how individuals construct their beliefs, intentions, and goals in specific social situations. Notably, social psychology focuses on three areas: social behavior, social thinking, and social influence (O'Doherty and Hodgetts, 2019). According to O'Doherty and Hodgetts (2019), these elements blend to form a strong force that shapes how people act. This portfolio will explain why people conform in their societies, looking at the key terms of social comparison, obedience, conformity, majority influence, and compliance. The paper also discusses essential research findings concerning majority influence and minority influence that explains how individuals conform to certain beliefs.

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Social Comparison

Social comparison occurs when people liken their skills, abilities, social status, and validity of their opinions to others. This aspect allows individuals to examine and weigh their behaviors' appropriateness by comparing them with those of others within their social worlds. According to Stangor et al. (2014), the social comparison process significantly influences one's level of self-esteem and self-concept. An example of social comparison is using influential people's perspectives to make specific decisions.

Obedience

Obedience from a social psychology perspective means behavior change due to a direct command or order from a person in authority. An example of obedience is going through security checks in the airport when told to do so by police officers performing law enforcement functions. Notably, authority figures require individuals to act in specific ways and even alter their behavior in response to their orders (Shaver, 2015). Thus, officials in authority influence other people's actions in the social world as they require them to act in a specific manner.

Conformity

The conformity component focuses on how people should act to meet the expectations of their social groups. An example is getting involved in bad habits such as drinking alcohol at a night party because the peers are doing the same. In a broad scope, people should follow regulations and societal norms in a society. An individual would feel pressure from others to follow the values that the group cherishes (Shaver, 2015). Other people's concern is one of the primary reasons for conformity to social norms and regulations in different social settings.

Compliance

This aspect refers to submissions individual makes in response to explicit or implicit requests from their peers. Actions, words, and even others' mere presence influence one's decision whether to comply with specific requests. This component shape a person's behavior, particularly in social interaction. An example is how a male student complies with her sorority's request due to the group's social influence.

Majority Influence

This social phenomenon refers to a situation where a larger group's opinions shape a minority group's views. An example is where a person from a foreign country change behavior to meet the broader American culture's social norms. According to Wei et al. (2019), people from minority groups tend to change their actions, judgments, and opinions to reflect the majority's characteristics even if such a move is against their personal preference.

Evaluation

Minority influence by Moscovici refers to a social phenomenon that occurs due to prolonged exposure to a majority position in particular social settings. Moscovici criticized the majority influence theory by Asch, claiming that it promotes the assumption that the majority group always influences the minority (Tanford and Penrod, 2012). Here, Moscovici opined that the minority could also exert significant pressure on the majority. Notably, Ash agreed with Moscovici at some point in his research. In this regard, Asch acknowledged that minority influence could occur, making it a potentially valuable aspect for future research.

The minority influence theory has received a lot of criticism that emanates from the reasoning that one can feel its effect after a long period (Tanford and Penrod, 2012). Again, there is a thinking that three things should exist for minority influence to occur. First, the minority group should be consistent in their views. Secondly, they must not have biases. Thirdly, the minority group should have a high degree of confidence in the correctness of their views (Crano and Seyranian, 2009). Researchers have also criticized Moscovici's study, claiming it is geocentric (Crano and Seyranian, 2009). However, minority influence has an essential strength as it recognizes that consistency is critical to the success of minority influence.

Asch's conformity research has also received widespread criticism. The arguments are based on the factors that made the participants conform. Some critics have claimed that there could be elements that motivated the participants to avoid conflict (Tanford and Penrod, 2012). This phenomenon implies that individuals' decisions to conform to the entire group could not be based on their desire. Besides, Asch's conformity experiment has a weakness in that it cannot reflect real-world situations. The thinking is based on the idea that laboratory experiments are clear-cut but may not be so in real-world settings. Still, Asch's research has a strength in that it focused on the impacts of social pressure on behavior and when individuals conform.

Ethical Issues in Controversial Research

Philip Zimbardo conducted his experiment in 1971 to examine how prison impacts prisoners and guards (Smith and Haslam, 2012). In this regard, Zimbardo investigated the reaction of 24 men who were put in a pseudo correctional facility to see their behavior change (Smith and Haslam, 2012). Half of the participants were randomly chosen as guards, while the remaining half volunteered as prisoners. While the study was to take two weeks, it only lasted for six days because prisoners experienced severe psychological illnesses (Smith and Haslam, 2012).

Milgram's experiment of 1963 sought to determine humans' willingness to obey commands and orders from people in authority (Perry et al., 2019). In this study, experimenters instructed the participants to deliver high-voltage shocks to their counterparts in the next room. As expected, the actors would scream then go silent as electric shocks' effects become more severe (Perry et al., 2019). Experimenters made such individuals believe that the electric shocks were real, which was not the case. In this study, Milgram observed that a significant proportion of the participants obeyed the orders even when they screamed in pain.

Zimbardo and Milgram's psychological experiments raise several ethical concerns. First, the two studies involve an issue of deception. In Milgram's experiment, researchers made the study participants believe that they were shocking a real person. The second concern is the right to withdraw. In Zimbardo's investigation, the participant's right to withdraw was revoked during the study. Herrera (2001) said that Milgram's experimenters used words such as "the experiment requires you to continue," which limited participants' right to withdraw.

Milgram's experiment complied with the third ethical principle about debriefing the study participants. The researcher also disclosed the true nature of the investigation. Conversely, Zimbardo's study did not debrief the prisoners immediately after the experiment. Researchers instead debriefed them several years later, making it difficult to assess their psychological wellbeing (Herrera, 2001). The fourth ethical concern is protecting the participants from harm. Zimbardo's experiment violated this principle since researchers did not protect individuals playing prisoners' role from physical and psychological damage. Milgram's research also raises this ethical issue because experimenters subjected the participants to stressful situations.

Milgram's research followed the fifth ethical principle of confidentiality because the participants consented for the researcher to publish the results. Zimbardo's study also conformed to this aspect as experimenters coded vital information (Herrera, 2001). The last ethical principle is informed consent. Zimbardo did not obtain full consent as the experimenters did not inform the prisoners that they would be arrested in their homes. In Milgram's research, the researcher obtained informed consent but did not let the participants know the nature of the experiment.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Psychological harm refers to the cognitive and emotional disturbance that individuals experience as a result of other people's actions. In experimental psychology, it means the mental harm that study participants experience due to stressful situations. CBA provides an opportunity to weigh costs and the benefits that experimenters derive from psychological research.

Milgram's experiment is beneficial because it contributed to the discovery of essential knowledge that today's psychologists apply to explain various aspects. Psychologists can use Milgram's findings to explain atrocities and genocides in human history. The study is also beneficial because law enforcement agencies can apply their knowledge of factors that make people obey authorities to formulate policies (Baumrind, 2015). The costs associated with this experiment are related to psychological harm to study participants. On CBA's principle, the scientific worth of Milgram's experiment balances out mental harm to study participants.

CBA for Zimbardo's experiment involves the analysis of the ethical costs and scientific benefits of the research. Critical costs in Zimbardo's research are physical harm and mental damage that participants endured during the study. In this regard, volunteer prisoners suffered psychological and physical abuse for six days from inhuman guards. In terms of benefits, Zimbardo's experiment produced essential scientific knowledge that can be applied in policymaking. Here, Zimbardo found that situational factors help influence behavior.

Conclusion

Members of a specific social world tend to influence other people's opinions, beliefs, values, and behavior. Key elements of social psychology that explain this phenomenon are social comparison, obedience, conformity, compliance, and majority influence. An individual tends to act in specific ways to exhibit characteristics expected of specific social groups. Notably, the majority and minority influence occur when people are in a situation that requires them to act in a particular manner, even if it is against their wishes. While it is possible to have majority and minority influence, the former social phenomenon can quickly happen because of group pressure. Moscovici's view of minority influence has a weakness in that it is geocentric. Its success is based on the idea that consistency is key to the success of minority influence. Asch's theory of majority influence has a limitation that emanates from a difficulty replicating laboratory experiments to real-life situations. Zimbardo's and Milgram's experiments are some of the most controversial psychological research because they raise several ethical concerns. However, their scientific benefits seem to balance out moral costs and psychological harm.

References

Baumrind, D. (2015). When Subjects Become Objects: The Lies Behind the Milgram

Legend. Theory & Psychology, [Online] Volume 25(5), 690-696.