Ethics in Psychology study

Rasmus

People that frequent this forum may already know about a long thread in the Christmas forum that involved an American girl asking about Christmas in Ireland in which she talked in detail about her Irish dad returning to Mayo for the first Christmas in 20 years.
Many, many posters replied to share their Christmas experiences, to let her know about things to do, to wish her well and to tell her they loved the thread.

It turned out to be a hoax, and the poster said he was a psychology student preparing a project on how Christmas affects people (or something to that effect).

This thread is here; but go to post 89 for a moderator explanation.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056800445&page=6

My questions are: Is this a normal psychology project to attempt? (Seems unusually dishonest to me). Secondly, what kind of ethical breach is being performed here?

AvaKinder

It absolutely is NOT the norm in research psychology.

Informed consent is one of the cornerstones of all ethical guidelines and deception may only be used when there is a clear and valid reason, and the study would be of great value. This study appeared to be of value only to the student involved.

I highly doubt this person is an actual psychology student and if there are I'd be amazed if they make it through their degree if they think that kind of thing is acceptable.

I'm currently doing my undergrad thesis and the amount of ethics stuff I have to deal with is huge. I honestly can't imagine even a 1st year student thinking that was an okay thing to do, or that it would get them a passing grade.

Rasmus

Thanks very much for your reply. I posted a link to this thread on the Christmas thread, where some posters feel that they had a right to know what they were taking part in.

sambuka41

I just read the thread there. Bizzare, I can't see the need for the deception, I find most people quite open to discussing Christmas and the emotions that tie into it. So I can't imagine any ethics committee approving this.

Old Perry

Found it a pretty interesting , although i have'nt finished reading yet. I would'nt be to hard on amyfitz, it was an interesting idea, just not thought through all that well. I think Ari may have went a bit over the top with the whole undermining thing. Was it not just a semester project as opposed to full blown professional research? im sure there was no ethics board or guidelines for the op to follow.

Although completely neccesary, eithical considerations are a pain in the hole :pac:, and back in a time when eithics were'nt so much of a concern, it has to be said we did have some very interesting stuff to read.

sambuka41

Old Perry wrote: »

Was it not just a semester project as opposed to full blown professional research? im sure there was no ethics board or guidelines for the op to follow.

There would be an obligation for the student to behave in line with ethics whether taking part in a full blown research or not. If they plan on having a career in psychology this type of inquiry is not really acceptable, or even necessary.

Musefan

That's an unacceptable amount of deception-with no protocols to debrief whatsoever. I highly doubt given the timing of the first "AmyFitz" post, that the student had even submitted an ethical application, let alone had an ethics committee examine one.

Valmont

I'm aware this breaches ethical guidelines but it raises a question I've always wondered about: are ethical guidelines for research overly stringent? It was really a harmless thread and I don't see the problem at all, personally.

deegs

Bit late to this, and I can see how it can be considered bad practice... but I cant see anything wrong?

Consider it another way... I could find any user or group of users on boards.ie or any other website and go through their published material and use it for whatever I see fit as long as they can not be identified from it.

When you publish information online, you loose certain rights and that information can then be re-used without your permission or consent.

Its a very interesting ethical nightmare all the same!

Musefan

Usually when I consider the ethics of a project, I consider the Belmont report which postulates research participants should benefit from three aspects-respect for persons, beneficence and justice. I can't see how participants in this study were respected, given it seems the OP only revealed the true motives when the story spiraled out of control. With regards beneficence, the participants responded in an emotional way to the story, and there was no benefit for them doing this as they were not debriefed or offered sufficient further support. With regards justice, the researcher was exploiting the responses of the boards.ie members and while they are free to choose when or how they respond to a boards.ie thread, they were not free to choose whether they wanted to participate in this research as they were not informed.

I appreciate that my point of view is informed by the training I received, and that everyone has their own interpretation of situations, which I think is great, because debate around ethical issues can be the driver in changing the standards of how we work or research as psychologist. What I would say, is that in my opinion, just because a study is small and might only operate on an internet forum, I think the same ethical considerations should be given to it as if it were a large scale project

deegs

I think what you say is spot on, but speaking from an Information security perspective information that goes in the public domain such as this is basically a freely utilised asset.

Its kinda like how city planners can record your use of a specific road and your behaviour on that road. As long as they do not identify you (use a picture of you, or your license plate etc.) they can pretty much use any other bit of information you indirectly provide them.

So if for whatever reason you use a service that collects, organises and hosts information (in this case replies in a thread) that is freely available to the public (and free for the public to use/consume as they see fit) then it can be used in research without the need for consent.

In fact Musefan... I can quote your text above and use it in any research I choose and cite the work as originating from here. Why not? There is nothing you can do to stop that, wether you agree with it or not.

You may cite authors who have published their works and these authors know as published authors their work may well be cited by me and others. This is the same when we publish our personal information on the internet, on forums or facebook etc. It may be cited and used by others for whatever reason they like (with a few caveats). Just because we may not realise that, is not the fault of the researcher, but ours as the producer of this information.

Likewise I could go through users recent history and take some quotes from people (after hours quotes are best) and use them as I want. I could actually use the history of a person and profile them. I may even take a photo that a user has uploaded and use it in my research. (Taking photo's for academic purposes such as a piece of work or presentation does not require authorisation from the owner or attrition)
Personally, I have also cited from blogs or other informal non peer reviewed sources without seeking permission etc. and published them legitimately and without acting unethically.

I would have no problem taking a few posts from a place like boards if I felt they added weight to an arguement I was trying to make. And if I was now to conduct research on attitudes to christmas that thread would be a great source of study and I would happily use the information there without the authors consent.

No, the real issue for me is not whether its right to take posts from boards et al. without consent... but whether its etichal to start a discussion as a "user" and then later gather information as a "researcher"... thats where it is tricky...

As an information security person there is absolutely no ethical issues... it is all there in the terms and conditions of boards... as a researcher... I'm not too sure, but leaning towards it is ethical, but perhaps a little sneaky...