Psychological science tries to figure out why humans and animals behave the way they do. Typically, psychologists describe behavior as visible actions such as eating, recalling tales, and so on. What about subliminal psychological processes like thinking and feeling?
Although thoughts and feelings are not physically visible, they impact behavior characteristics such as response time and blood pressure, which are frequently employed to quantify these intangible processes. The practical benefits of psychology research are many. They include discoveries such as improved techniques for treating psychologically ill persons, better vehicle designs to make them easier and safer to operate, and innovative means of improving worker performance and pleasure.
Research using human beings has been extremely helpful in expanding our understanding of the biological, behavioral, and social sciences. Federal, state, and local authorities carefully restrict this type of study. Professional associations have also created discipline-specific norms, rules, and regulations to ensure study participants' well-being and rights. The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research was established to investigate concerns regarding safeguarding people in research at the beginning of the 1970s in response to widely reported research abuse.
The Commission published the Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research report, also known as the Belmont Report, in 1979 and established the ethical foundation for the present federal regulations that safeguard human respondents. The laws and rules that impact how research with human subjects is conducted are briefly listed below.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 is part of a new law that addresses privacy and security problems in particular domains such as electronic healthcare transactions. HIPAA applies to health plans, health care providers who send any health information in electronic form in conjunction with a HIPAA-covered transaction, and health care clearinghouses.
HIPAA's scope, however, extends to outsourcers as well, as the Act requires covered entities to impose HIPAA obligations on entities that are business associates and deal with the covered entity and perform a function/service that involves the use of individually available health information of the covered entities and receive health information. HIPAA establishes two types of requirements: privacy standards and security standards. The privacy rule prohibits the disclosure or use of protected health information unless expressly approved by the individual or required by law. The security rule is a subset of the former and takes effect when protected health information is transferred or stored electronically.
The Public Health Service Act is a federal law adopted in the United States in 1944. Title 42 of the United States Code (The Public Health and Welfare), Chapter 6A, contains the complete statute (Public Health Service). The legislation established the federal government's quarantine jurisdiction for the first time. It charged the US Public Health Service with preventing the import, transfer, and spread of infectious illnesses from other nations into the US. The initial authorization for scientists and special consultants to be appointed "without regard to the civil-service regulations," known as a Title 42 appointment, was provided by the Public Health Service Act.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the principal federal organization in charge of conducting and financing biomedical and behavioral research. It has important functions in biomedical research training and health information dissemination. The National Institutes of Health aims to seek basic information about the nature and behavior of living systems and to use that knowledge to improve health, prolong life, and minimize sickness and disability.
The agency comprises the Office of the Director, in charge of general policy and program management, and 27 institutes and centers, each focusing on certain diseases or areas of human health research. A highly competitive system of peer-reviewed grants and contracts supports a diverse array of research.
The Belmont Report highlighted three basic codes of conduct that ought to be undertaken by researchers as their foremost responsibilities, each of which has been elucidated below.
Respect for humans, the first tenet of the Belmont Report, deals with how study participants are treated. A key component of this doctrine is informed consent, which entails providing participants with details about the scope of their study participation, including what they will do during the study, the research objective, any risks about the research, the significance of the research, details about alternative treatments (if any), and participants' entitlements during the research (particularly their right to leave the research and their right to request questions), as well as the hazards and advantages of participating in the study. The ability of the participants to comprehend the information provided to them throughout the informed consent procedure is the duty of the researchers.
The study details are frequently included on a consent form that participants must review and accept before being allowed to participate. Participants who might not be able to absorb the information completely must be given special safeguards (e.g., underage children and people with certain kinds of disabilities or conditions). The degree of protection varies depending on the likelihood that those people will suffer harm and the advantages of their participation.
After receiving the above-described information about the study, survey respondents must opt to take part in it as a portion of the written consent procedure. As a result, participants may feel pressured to participate in the study, which presents a problem for them. To lessen any perceived coercion to engage, for instance, the rights of imprisoned individuals should be properly taken into account. This is also a problem if students are involved in a study when the instructor is also a researcher.
In this situation, the teacher must make it plain during the informed consent procedure that the participants' ability to decline participation will not impact how well they perform in the course. A translation of the written consent documentation must be given if there are non-English speaking participants. If minors or people under legal guardianship are involved, the legal guardian's informed consent and approval must be sought. The assent procedure must outline the requirements for participation and do it in a way that makes it clear to the participants what is expected of them.
The term "beneficence" describes the decrease in participant risk of the study's advantage. A risk-benefit evaluation should be conducted to determine that research advantages surpass the dangers to the participants. Additionally, when planning a study, the risk of injury to the respondents must be minimized to the greatest extent possible. Risks can take many forms and must be considered in psychological research.
Despite being a clear factor, physical danger is hardly mentioned in a few research. Threats to a participant's psychological well-being, prestige, and social status are more frequent. Participants may experience stress or emotional distress as a result of certain studies. Participants in a study may suffer psychological injury if they are prompted to think about traumatic or unpleasant occurrences while in an interview or when responding to a questionnaire.
To assess mood states, depressive mood inducement may take place in some investigations. As a result, changing individuals' moods could have a negative psychological impact. There may be a social risk that infants' confidentiality is violated while distributing a research study. In that case, the researcher may protect the participants' privacy at all times while the research is being conducted.
The researcher weighs the above dangers against the study's advantages to society to ensure that the advantages surpass the disadvantages. To defend any risks that might bedevil the respondents during the research, the researcher must ascertain the likely advantage of the study and the common pitfalls to the attendees by examining previous studies undertaken similarly to ascertain their influence on individuals and describe the study in terms of its probable benefits.
Therefore, investigations with a greater chance of discovering anything significant may also be more dangerous than those with a lower chance of success. However, the researcher is responsible for evaluating whether circumstances would be too detrimental for volunteers to participate in a study. Systematic abuse of study participants is never justifiable.
The justice principle includes fair participant screening. Both ensure that possibly hazardous circumstances are not only administered to a particular group and guarantee that everyone has an equal opportunity to receive potentially positive treatments in research (for example, treatments for particular mental illnesses or conditions). Special attention must be given to groups that might be simpler to control (e.g., people with illnesses and poor individuals).
Consider, for instance, that we are a researcher undertaking a study in a region with a high concentration of financially deprived people. We intend to pay the respondents $50 to participate in our in-depth study (we intend to conduct in-depth interviews with the participants and spend some time observing them).
It is reasonable to pay U.S. students $50 for this sort of participation, so we compensate poor attendees in our study with the same amount. $50, however, means something different to middle-class people than it does to low-income people. Even if the volunteers did not wish to take part in our research, they might feel pressured to do so to receive the $50, which might be enough to cover their family's expenses for a while.
Therefore, many view this kind of compensation as coercive toward low-income participants. Because of their more pressing need for remuneration than people with higher incomes, these people could feel they have fewer choices than those with higher incomes. To assure equitable participant selection, researchers need to consider these concerns. A scientific rationale must be provided if one participant group should be omitted from a research project.
These are −
| Respect to Persons | Beneficence | Justice |
|---|---|---|
| Provides information about the study before it begins (nature of participation, purpose, risks, benefits) | Reduces risk of harm to participants | Selection of participants must be fair |
| Obtains voluntary consent from participants after they are informed | Potential benefits of the study must outweigh risks | All participant groups must have opportunity to receive benefits of research |
| Gives participants opportunity to ask questions | Inhumane treatment of participants is never justified | No participant groups may be unfairly selected for harmful research |
| Informs participants of right to withdraw |
Even though research on human participants provides a rich repertoire of information and knowledge that can facilitate a magnanimous sum of life, it is crucial to remember that morality and ethics come first. We must always be so blinded in trying to arrive at a conjecture that we remember the cardinal principle that we are using other human beings as a bridge. Therefore, various statutory bodies have established essential rules and regulations to keep all of this in check.
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