Choose an influential experiment in the field of psychology that violated present-day ethical guidelines. The following website (Mental Floss, 2012) may be useful in choosing a study, but you may also choose one that is not listed there: http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today.

Briefly describe the study. Then, taking into consideration the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2002), discuss at least 2 guidelines that were violated and how. Describe how violating these guidelines was or could have been harmful to participants.

Given your knowledge of ethical guidelines, re-design the experiment you chose so the same hypothesis could be addressed in an ethical research study.

In all sections of your Assignment, particular attention should be paid to the General Principles (http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx?item=3) and standards for research (http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx?item=11) in the ethical code. Some concentration areas also have their own ethical code, and this should be referred to as well.

Addictions: http://www.naadac.org/code-of-ethics

Behavior Analysis: http://www.bacb.com/index.php?page=57

Students with a Child Development or Industrial/Organizational concentration should refer to the APA code above.

 

References

American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx?item=1

Mental Floss. (2012). 10 famous psychological experiments that could never happen today. Retrieved from http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today