Somewhere along the way, someone probably told you that it is not nice to treat people like objects. And yet, it may seem that psychologists do just that by creating situations that cause people to feel fearful or sad, to do things that are embarrassing or immoral, and to learn things about themselves and others that they might not really want to know. Do not be fooled by appearances. The fact is that psychologists go to great lengths to protect the well-being of their research participants, and they are bound by a code of ethics that is as detailed and demanding as the professional codes that bind physicians, lawyers, and accountants. That code requires that psychologists show respect for people, for animals, and for the truth. Let us examine each of these obligations in turn.

During World War II, Nazi doctors performed truly barbaric experiments on human subjects, such as removing organs or submerging them in ice water just to see how long it would take them to die. When the war ended, the international community developed the Nuremberg Code of 1947 and then the Declaration of Helsinki in 1964, which spelled out rules for the ethical treatment of human subjects. Unfortunately, not everyone obeyed them. For example, from 1942 to 1952, the Canadian federal government conducted food and nutrition experiments on malnourished Cree communities in Northern Manitoba, and later at six Aboriginal residential schools. Some children received foods with vitamins and minerals, while others did not. At the time, no one in the communities was aware why some children were being fed products made with vitamin-enriched flour, while others were being fed broth, bread, and lard. Dental health care—even the use of fluoride—was restricted, since cavities and gum disease were both considered important measures of nutritional status, and dental interventions might interfere with the the results of the study (Mosby, 2013). Essentially the Canadian government was complicit in a set of experiments conducted on some of Canada’s most vulnerable people without their consent, and in which the risks far outweighed any potential benefit of the research.

Over time, the basic tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki have become increasingly enshrined in national legislation and regulations. In Canada, all research involving human persons or tissue is covered by the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS): Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. The “tri-council” refers to the three federal research agencies: Canadian Institute of Health Research, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The TCPS describes the core principles, based on respect for human dignity, that all research involving human subjects should follow. First, research should show respect for persons and their right to make decisions for and about themselves without undue influence or coercion. Second, research should show concern for welfare, which means that it should attempt to maximize benefits and reduce risks to the participant. Third, research should be just, which means that it should distribute benefits and risks equally to participants without prejudice toward particular individuals or groups.

71

The specific ethical code that psychologists follow incorporates these basic principles and expands them. (You can find the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct [2002] at http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx and The Canadian Psychological Association’s Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists [2000], which is very similar, at http://www.cpa.ca/aboutcpa/committees/ethics/codeofethics/.) Here are a few of the most important rules that govern the conduct of psychological research:

These are just some of the rules that psychologists must follow. But how are those rules enforced? Almost all psychology studies are done by psychologists who work at colleges and universities. These institutions have research ethics boards (REBs) that are composed of instructors and researchers, university staff, and laypeople from the community (e.g., business leaders or members of the clergy). If the research is federally funded (as much research is), then the law requires that the REB consist of at least five people, including an ethics expert, a legal expert, and a community member who is not affiliated with the institution. A psychologist may conduct a study only after the REB has reviewed and approved it.

72

As you can imagine, the code of ethics and the procedure for approval are so strict that many studies simply cannot be performed anywhere, by anyone, at any time. For example, psychologists would love to know how growing up without exposure to language affects a person’s subsequent ability to speak and think, but they cannot ethically manipulate that variable in an experiment. They can only study the natural correlations between language exposure and speaking ability, and so may never be able to firmly establish the causal relationships between these variables. Indeed, there are many questions that psychologists will never be able to answer definitively because doing so would require unethical experiments that violate basic human rights.

Not all research participants have human rights because not all research participants are human. Some are chimpanzees, rats, pigeons, or other nonhuman animals. The Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) is the national organization responsible for establishing standards for the ethical use and care of animals in research. It describes the special rights of these nonhuman participants, and provides guidelines that all research must follow. The Three Rs tenet (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement) guides the ethical use of animals in science, ensuring appropriate consideration of the animals’ comfort, health, and humane treatment.

These rules are good—but are they good enough? Some people do not think so. For example, philosopher Peter Singer (1975) argued that all creatures capable of feeling pain have the same fundamental rights, and that treating nonhumans differently than humans is a form of speciesism that is every bit as abhorrent as racism or sexism. Singer’s philosophy has inspired groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to call for an end to all research involving nonhuman animals. Unfortunately, it has also inspired some groups to attack psychologists who legally conduct such research. As two researchers (Ringach & Jentsch, 2009, p. 11417) recently reported:

We have seen our cars and homes firebombed or flooded, and we have received letters packed with poisoned razors and death threats via e-mail and voicemail. Our families and neighbors have been terrorized by angry mobs of masked protesters who throw rocks, break windows, and chant that “you should stop or be stopped” and that they “know where you sleep at night.” Some of the attacks have been cataloged as attempted murder. Adding insult to injury, misguided animal-rights militants openly incite others to violence on the Internet, brag about the resulting crimes, and go as far as to call plots for our assassination “morally justifiable.”

73

Where do most people stand on this issue? The majority of Canadians consider it morally acceptable to use nonhuman animals in research and say they would reject a governmental ban on such research (Gallup poll: Kiefer, 2003). Indeed, most Canadians eat meat, wear leather, and support the rights of hunters, which is to say that most Candians see a sharp distinction between animal and human rights. Science is not in the business of resolving moral controversies, and every individual must draw his or her own conclusions about this issue. But whatever position you take, it is important to note that only a small percentage of psychological studies involve animals, and only a small percentage of those studies cause animals pain or harm. Psychologists mainly study people, and when they do study animals, they mainly study their behaviour.

Research ethics boards ensure that data are collected ethically. But once the data are collected, who ensures that they are ethically analyzed and reported? No one does. Psychology, like all sciences, works on the honour system. No authority is charged with monitoring what psychologists do with the data they have collected, and no authority is charged with checking to see if the claims they make are true. You may find that a bit odd. After all, we do not use the honour system in stores (“Take the television set home and pay us next time you are in the neighborhood”), banks (“No need to look up your account, just tell me how much money you want to withdraw”), or courtrooms (“If you say you are innocent, well then, that is good enough for me”), so why would we expect it to work in science? Are scientists more honest than everyone else?

74

Definitely! Okay, we just made that up. But the honour system does not depend on scientists being especially honest, but on the fact that science is a community enterprise. When scientists claim to have discovered something important, other scientists do not just applaud, they start studying it too. When physicist Jan Hendrik Schön announced in 2001 that he had produced a molecular-scale transistor, other physicists were deeply impressed—that is, until they tried to replicate his work and discovered that Schön had fabricated his data (Agin, 2007). Schön lost his job and his doctoral degree was revoked, but the important point is that such frauds cannot last long because one scientist’s conclusion is the next scientist’s research question. This does not mean that all frauds are uncovered swiftly: psychologist Diederik Stapel lied, cheated, and made up his data for decades before people became suspicious enough to investigate (Levelt Committee, Noort Committee, Drenth Committee, 2012). But it does mean that the important frauds are uncovered eventually. The psychologist who fraudulently claims to have shown that chimps are smarter than goldfish may never get caught because no one is likely to follow up on such an obvious finding, but the psychologist who fraudulently claims to have shown the opposite will soon have a lot of explaining to do.

What exactly are psychologists on their honour to do? At least three things. First, when they write reports of their studies and publish them in scientific journals, psychologists are obligated to report truthfully on what they did and what they found. They cannot fabricate results (e.g., claiming to have performed studies that they never really performed) or fudge results (e.g., changing records of data that were actually collected), and they cannot mislead by omission (e.g., by reporting only the results that confirm their hypothesis and saying nothing about the results that do not). Second, psychologists are obligated to share credit fairly by including as co-authors of their reports the other people who contributed to the work, and by mentioning in their reports the other scientists who have done related work. And third, psychologists are obligated to share their data. The Canadian Psychological Association’s code of ethics states that ethical psychologists “not interfere with the free and open exchange of psychological knowledge and theory between themselves, their students, colleagues, and the public.” The fact that anyone can check up on anyone else is part of why the honour system works as well as it does.

75

76