- Understand how ethical standards govern psychological research and practice - Define ten principles of critical thinking [SLIDE 1] Psychologists adhere to several ethical standards that help promote individual dignity, human welfare, and scientific integrity. The standards are also intended to ensure that psychologists do not undertake research methods or treatments that are harmful. [SLIDE 2] In most institutional settings including colleges, hospitals, and research foundations, ethics review committees help researchers consider the potential harm of their methods and review proposed studies according to ethical guidelines. When these committees determine that proposed research might be unacceptably harmful to participants, they may withhold approval until the proposal has been modified. Ethics review committees also weigh the potential benefits of research against the potential harm. [SLIDE 3] Today, individuals must provide informed consent before they participate in research. Informed consent is a participant's agreement to participate in research after receiving information about the purposes of the study and the nature of the treatments. A general idea of the research and the opportunity to choose not to participate can give participants a sense of control and decrease the stress of participating. [SLIDE 4] Psychologists keep the records of therapy clients and research participants confidential because they respect people's privacy and because people are more likely to express their true thoughts and feelings when researchers or therapists maintain confidentiality. Sometimes, conflicts of interest arise, as when a client threatens to harm someone and the psychologist feels an obligation to warn the victim. According to the American Psychological Association's Handbook of Ethics in Psychology, psychologists may use deception only when they believe the benefits of the research outweigh its potential harm, when they believe the individuals might have been willing to participate if they had understood the benefits of the research, and when participants are debriefed afterward. Debriefing involves explaining the purposes and methods of a completed procedure to a research participant. Participants in the previously discussed Lang study on alcohol and aggression were deceived in two ways. The researchers (a) misinformed them about what they were drinking and (b) told them they were shocking other participants when they were actually only pressing switches on an unconnected control board. Aggression was defined for purposes of the study as pressing the switches. The study could not have been run without deception, but the ethics of deceiving research participants remains up for debate. [SLIDE 5] Psychologists frequently use animals to conduct research that cannot be carried out with humans. Such research has helped psychologists investigate the formation of parent–child bonds of attachment. When animals are used in research, psychologists have strict standards as to how the animals are to be cared for and treated. [SLIDE 6] Experiments with animals, such as monkeys and rats, highlight some of the ethical issues faced by psychologists and other scientists who contemplate potentially harmful research. Psychologists and biologists who study the workings of the brain destroy sections of the brains of laboratory animals to learn how they influence behavior. For instance, a lesion in one part of a brain structure causes a rat to overeat, while a lesion elsewhere causes the rat to stop eating. Psychologists generalize to humans from experiments such as these in the hope of finding solutions to problems such as eating disorders. Proponents of the use of animals in research argue that major advances in medicine and psychology could not have taken place without them -- for example, we would know much less about how experimental drugs affect cancerous growths and the brain. According to the ethical guidelines of the APA, animals may be harmed only when there is no alternative and when researchers believe that the benefits of the research justify the harm. [SLIDE 7] Critical thinking has many different meanings. It can mean taking nothing for granted and not believing things just because they are in print or because they were uttered by authority figures or celebrities. But on another level, critical thinking refers to a process of thoughtfully analyzing and probing the questions, statements, and arguments of others. Psychologists go one step further than this. They also apply critical thinking when it comes to evaluating the validity of their own research. [SLIDE 8] There are 10 key principals of critical thinking:
  1. Be skeptical. Accept nothing as the truth until you have examined the evidence.
  2. Insist on evidence. It is not sufficient that an opinion come from an authority such as a scientist.
  3. Examine definitions of terms. A statement may be true or false depending on how various terms are defined.
  4. Examine the assumptions or premises of arguments. This can clarify the meaning and validity of the statement.
  5. Be cautious in drawing conclusions from evidence. Consider doing a comparative assessment rather than drawing conclusions from one set of evidence.
[SLIDE 9]
  1. Be especially skeptical of anecdotes. Don't assume one reported case is satisfactory as evidence.
  2. Consider alternative interpretations of research evidence. This includes not considering correlation as causation.
  3. Do not oversimplify. Humans are complex, so critical thinking requires patience to assess findings.
  4. Do not overgeneralize. This includes not falling for an all-or-nothing result.
  5. Apply critical thinking to all areas of life.