Research Methods and Ethics in Human Sexuality
As important as any other aspect of physical and mental health, our sexuality,
how it operates biologically, and how we as social emotional creatures, approach sex,
has been a topic of interest to various thinkers throughout time and location. As the
scientific method became the way of knowing across academic fields, sexuality, which
fell under multiple disciplines, was no exception. Let’s turn our attention to some
(certainly not all) notable contributors to the field. Sigmund Freud was born in Freiberg,
Moravia on May 6, 1856. At a young age, Sigmund was considered to be very brilliant,
and was given the best education his parents could afford. He eventually graduated
from the University of Vienna in 1881. With a degree in medicine, he would find his
interest in the realm of the mind, and would be greatly influenced by Charles Darwin
and his work on the theory of evolution. He worked for a local psychiatric clinic, and
from there he started up his research on human behavior. He then received a
scholarship to study in France in order to solve the mystery behind the condition of
hysteria in women (conversion disorder). He hypothesized that many of the women he
treated were merely sexually frustrated, and later, postulated that most mental
illnesses were caused by an underlying sexual problem (Haeberle, 1983). Today such
notions have been proved wrong and Freud’s legacy is a complicated one. There are
many other causes of mental instability. Despite his narrow focus on sexuality as the
root of all mental illness, his work in the field does begin the conversation of human
sexuality in the academic world. Because of this, Freud is considered a pioneer in the
study of human sexuality. Society is more open to the study of sexuality and sexuality
itself due in part to Freud’s work (Garcia, 1995).
Freud was the first to theorize that sexuality existed throughout a person’s life
beginning at infancy. In 1905, Freud published his work, Three Essays on the Theory
of Sexuality. Freud’s psychosexual development theory was the greatest major
advancement in the study of sexuality of his time, and present day psychologists still
consider Freud’s theory when studying human sexuality. According to Freud, humans
have libido, which is the notion of organically generated instinctual energy (Haeberle,
1983). Freud identified developmental stages of sexuality: the oral stage, anal stage,
phallic stage, latency, and genital stage. The oral stage begins during infancy, and
each stage is experienced until the child reaches adolescence, ending with the genital
stage. Not all Freud‘s theories were widely accepted during his life. Freud found that
his theories on the sexuality of children caused some controversy and he became an
outcast among other scientists. Freud wrote 4 major books: The Interpretation of
Dreams (1900), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Totem and Taboo
(1913), and Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1919). These books based on the theories
of Freud have earned him the title “the founder of psychoanalysis” (Haeberle, 1983).
An American Social activist who fought for the right of women to learn about and
practice contraception. During her time, women were mostly relegated to a cycle of
pregnancy and childbirth, and yet, the use of contraception was highly stigmatized.
Women of color, poor women and otherwise marginalized women were most at risk of
suffering under a system that made it hard to access legal and safe contraception.
While not a sex researcher, she introduced U.S. women to the diaphragm and went
on to advocate for and promote research that aided in the development of the oral
contraceptive known as “the pill”. Sanger was jailed for her activism and even taught
her fellow incarcerated women about contraception. The organization she founded in
pursuit of women’s rights later became Planned Parenthood.
While Margaret Sanger was a successful American birth control activist, sex
educator, writer, and nurse, the difficult truth is that the activist had alliances with
Eugenicists (a debunked, discriminatory, evolutionary theory that seeks to eradicate
“genetic defects” to improve the genetic makeup of a person through human breeding).
Sanger’s beliefs caused irreparable damage to Black, Indigenous, People of color,
(BIPOC), people with disabilities, immigrants, and many others through her beliefs that
were rooted in white supremacy. While Sanger is the founder of Planned Parenthood,
the organization publicly acknowledges the legacy of antiBlackness and racism as it
relates to reproductive health as well as gynecology. Planned Parenthood is a well-
known medical organization that specializes in reproductive health while also
emphasizing the importance of people controlling their bodies, lives, self-
determination and dignity. Planned Parenthood acknowledges Sanger’s problematic
beliefs and sees it as an opportunity to address the systemic issues within the
organization and redefine its mission to uphold its values that strive to provide a variety
of medical services to the communities that they exist in. For more on this, please
watch Alexis McGill Johnson Remarks on Margaret Sanger | Planned Parenthood
Video.
Alfred Kinsey was an American researcher, who was most known for his research
on sexual behavior. In particular, Kinsey’s study and later book entitled, Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male examined the sexual proclivities of males which led to
his creation of the Kinsey Scale (Kinsey, 1948 p 636-649). This scale introduced the
idea that sexuality is a spectrum rather than a binary set of categories, either or. Kinsey
states that there are “patterns of sexual behavior and that the two types (homosexual
and heterosexual) are represented in the sexual world, and that there is only a small
number of "bisexuals" who occupy an intermediate position between the other
groups”(More on this in Chapter 4). Kinsey made the assertion that most individuals
were “exclusively either homosexual or heterosexual both in experience and in psychic
reactions” by looking back to documented history (Kinsey, 1948 p 636-649). He also
found that there were a very small group of individuals who experienced both types of
behaviors, which led Kinsey to state that, “Males do not represent two discrete
populations, heterosexual and homosexual” (Kinsey, 1948 p 636-649). Kinsey’s work
indicates that while an individual can be either homosexual or heterosexual, there are
more than just two types of sexuality represented by the population.
Often overlooked in the literature, Nettie Stevens was one of the first female
scientists to make a name for herself in the biological sciences. She was born in
Cavendish, Vermont. Her family settled in Westford, Massachusetts. Stevens' father
was a carpenter and handyman. He did well enough to own quite a bit of Westford
property, and could afford to send his children to school. Stevens was a brilliant
student, consistently scoring the highest in her classes. In 1896, Stevens went to
California to attend Leland Stanford University. She graduated with a Masters in
Biology. Her thesis involved a lot of microscopic work and precise, careful detailing of
new species of marine life. This training was a factor in her success with later
investigations of chromosomal behavior. After Stanford, Stevens went to Bryn Mawr
College for more graduate work. Thomas Hunt Morgan was still teaching at Bryn Mawr,
and was one of her professors. Stevens again did so well that she was awarded a
fellowship to study abroad. She traveled to Europe and spent time in Theodor Boveri's
lab at the Zoological Institute at Würzburg, Germany. Boveri was working on the
problem of the role of chromosomes in heredity. Stevens likely developed an interest
in the subject from her stay.
In 1903, Stevens got her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr, and started looking for a
research position. She was eventually given an assistantship by the Carnegie Institute
after glowing recommendations from Thomas Hunt Morgan, Edmund Wilson and M.
Carey Thomas, the president of Bryn Mawr. Her work on sex determination was
published as a Carnegie Institute report in 1905. In this first study she looked at sex
determination in meal worms. Later, she studied sex determination in many different
species of insects. Stevens' assistantship at Bryn Mawr still meant that she had to
teach. She wanted a pure research position, and wrote to Charles Davenport to see if
it was possible for her to work at his Station for Experimental Biology. Unfortunately,
Stevens died of breast cancer in 1912 before she could occupy the research
professorship created for her at Bryn Mawr, or work with Davenport at Cold Spring
Harbor (Nettie Mae Stevens, 2011).
Mead, an American Anthropologist, sought to study sexuality outside of the
Western lens. She traveled extensively abroad in pursuit of this. Her work in Samoaled
her to observe uninhibited sex that youth in Samoa engaged in. Sex among the youth
was both condoned and encouraged by adult members of the community. Her work
challenged the restrictive sexual ethics of her time. Beyond sexual practices differing
relative to culture, she also wrote about gender roles differing from what were
normative practices in the U.S. She spoke to the concept of sexuality as a social
construction in terms of how culture was the shaping force in sexual attitudes and
behaviors (Mead, 1928 p 61-76).
Richard von Krafft-Ebing was a German sexologist who wrote the book
Psychopathia Sexualis. According to the book, various forms of sexual behavior and
arousal were considered disgusting. He believed that there existed numerous sexual
behaviors and sexual practices which he called 'natural variations' and that all of them
aroused the same cultural phenomenon of stigma. These sexual deviations were
classified into four different groups: sadism, masochism, fetishism, and homosexuality.
Krafft-Ebing emphasizes that the hand is one the most common fetishes and often
joined by masochistic and sadistic behaviors (Bauer, 2003). He wrote that
homosexuality was a natural occurrence and that it is not a chosen vice. Krafft-Ebing
essentially brought to light the fact that homosexuality exists as part of the spectrum
of human sexuality rather than pathologizing it (Bauer, 2003).
William Howell Masters and Virginia Eshelman Johnson pioneered research on
human sexual behavior in the 1950s and 1960s. They worked together to disprove
many of the long standing misconceptions about sexual behavior. In 1966 They
released their most important, groundbreaking study, a four-stage model of human
sexual response based on approximately 10,000 recordings of changes in participants'
physiology during climax. From these data, they identified four successive stages: (1)
excitement, (2) plateau, (3) orgasm, and (4) resolution. These findings would change
how people viewed sexual responses and will be discussed further in Chapter 4.
(Fuhrmann, & Buhi, 2009).
In 1995 a study was done on 1200 students at a Northern California University.
Students were surveyed about their at home sex education. The hypothesis was that
male students got vastly different messages about sexuality than female students did
(note: the study demographics look only at gender asking only either male or female.
If this study were to be replicated today, the gender question would be modified to
include other gender options). The data gathered and resultant Master’s Thesis
obtained by this textbook’s author gave support to the hypothesis that sex education
falls down gendered lines. The sexual double standard is something we know exists,
men are praised for being sexually experienced and women are taught to remain pure.
This double standard in the United States dates back centuries and is rooted in
Christianity, primarily White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) religion and puritanical
culture. The data suggested that this double standard was alive in well the sex
education these students received at home. Overall parents were not teaching their
children about sex much at all and when they were it was very different depending on
the gender of the child. Students assigned male are told to go out, explore and become
sexually experienced. The philosophies that my father portrayed were: 1) Use a
women to satisfy sexual desire, 2) Cast the woman aside when the sex act is finished,
3) Use any means possible, except for physical force, to have sex with any woman.
To formally introduce me to manhood, my dad gave me a brief description of sexual
intercourse which was followed by taking me to a hooker 2 months later. I reluctantly
had sex with the hooker to save my pride F8401M.
On the contrary, assigned females were taught to keep their bodies safe and not
to have casual sex. I am now very sad. Maybe I can ask my mom about sex. No! No
way! They will kick me out of the family if they know I am not a virgin. I won’t even tell
them anything. I don’t want my family to treat me like a monster. F9307F The overall
findings were that parents view their child’s sexual rights very differently depending on
whether they are assigned male or assigned female (Rahman, 1995). So what this
results in is two very different sexual scripts. How does this double standard play out
in terms of coupling? If a significant number of people in society end up coupling with
another person whose gender is not the same as theirs, how do we navigate sexuality,
communication and consent when we have been given radically different messages?
Humans and their social interactions are so diverse that these interactions can
seem impossible to chart or explain. However, this is exactly why scientific models can
work for studying human behavior. A scientific process of research establishes
parameters that help make sure results are objective and accurate. Scientific methods
provide limitations and boundaries that focus a study and organize its results. The
scientific method involves developing and testing theories about the world based on
empirical evidence. It is defined by its commitment to systematic observation of the
empirical world and strives to be objective, critical, skeptical, and logical as best as
possible. No human study can be completely value free, but the scientific method
includes acknowledging researcher bias or perspective as part of the findings report.
It most often involves a series of prescribed steps (see chart above) that have been
established over centuries of scholarship.
Sexuality is often considered a taboo subject in modern Western society,
therefore, the field is among the most difficult to obtain reliable data. However, with the
use of the survey method, information is easily obtained from large groups. Because
of this, there is the potential for both representativeness and the size of the samples
to be more adequate for generalizations to larger groups of people (Griffitt &
Hatfield,1985). Using a voluntary large group to identify the traits and habits of the
population can be both much more reliable, and not completely accurate. Focusing on
a small case study or a small group in an experiment to draw a conclusion about the
general population can be misleading, because the individuals who choose to
participate in an experiment about sexuality are already likely more open to discussing
sex than the general population. One of the most comprehensive sexuality studies in
the U.S known as The Janus Report was largely criticized for not actually having
information from a random sampling. The Americans in the study were willing to talk
about and engage in wider varieties of sexual behaviors.
Volunteer bias can create major problems for any type of research. Some
psychologists believe that people who volunteer for research have
differentcharacteristics from those who don’t volunteer. This is thought to be especially
true in regards to sex research, with sex being a more taboo topic for some. The
Volunteer Bias and Personality Traits in Sexual Standards research sought to see if
there was stronger volunteer bias in sex surveys, versus a survey of a more general
topic. The study surveyed 126 males and 128 females in an introductory Psychology
course at a Midwestern Canadian university. The study began with the students
completing the Personality Research Form developed in 1967 by Psychologist
Douglas N. Jackson to assess the students' personalities. They were then assigned
to be mailed either a sexual standard’s questionnaire (experimental group) or parent-
child relations questionnaire (control group). Returning these questionnaires was not
required for the course. It was hypothesized that the volunteers who returned the
sexual standards survey would stand out as an atypical group. However, when relating
back to the personality research forms, personalities were about the same as those
who returned the parent-child relations questionnaire.
Through the interdisciplinary study of human sexuality and corresponding
research, we are able to obtain more information about the sexual aspects of human
beings. As human beings, researchers are conducting research about topics that
relate directly to them. Often, researchers will have ideas, values, or opinions based
on their cultural or social status that may skew some data. While this is certainly to be
expected, it is easily assuaged by full transparency surrounding the research. A
section in any research report can include the researcher’s hypothesis prior to
undertaking the study, so that the reader can understand where the researcher is
coming from. Clear description of methods and findings plus an analysis of the
implications also helps validate research findings. While it is problematic if researchers
do not recognize their own biases and include them in their findings, these simple
steps can avoid this type of pitfall. Another type of bias can come from those who have
a vested interest in keeping a certain narrative about whatever phenomena is a
proposed topic of study. In some cases, intervention from lobbyists and conservative
groups prevented major funding of certain research making discovery more difficult.
Those special interest groups may argue that there is no value in the study and in fact
would do more harm than good. This is a slippery slope, and sometimes, the research
that can be lifesaving ends up being the most controversial.
As discussed in the previous chapter, research done by the Father of Modern
Gynecology, Dr. Marion Simms was tainted by his unethical approach to patient care,
based on perceived racism and beliefs about the pain threshold of Black enslaved
women. As research became something that aided in the pursuit of knowledge, many
researchers who were laser focused on wanting to know chose to overlook ethical
considerations, and their actions led to great harm in numerous cases. Ethics are
taken very seriously in institutions of higher learning because of this shameful past,
and we as present day practitioners are held to high standards when it comes to
research on human subjects.
At a broader societal level, members of some groups have historically faced more
than their fair share of the risks of scientific research, including people who are
institutionalized, are disabled, or belong to a racial or ethnic minority or otherwise
disadvantaged group. A particularly tragic example of this is the Tuskegee (Box 2.3
above) and Guatemala Syphilis studies both led by Dr. John Cutler. In Tuskegee, the
study conducted for the Public Health Service took place from 1932 to 1972. These
participants were poor African American men in the vicinity of Tuskegee, Alabama,
who were told that they were being treated for bad blood. Although they were given
free medical care, they were not treated for their syphilis. Instead, they were observed
to see how the disease developed in untreated patients. Even after the use of penicillin
became the standard treatment for syphilis in the 1940s, these men continued to be
denied treatment without being given an opportunity to leave the study. The study was
eventually discontinued only after details were made known to the general public by
journalists and activists. It is now widely recognized that researchers need to consider
issues of justice and fairness at the societal level. Beginning in 1946, the United States
government, under Dr. Cutler, immorally and unethically engaged in research
experiments, in which more than 5000 uninformed and unconsenting Guatemalan
people were intentionally infected with bacteria that cause sexually transmitted
diseases. Many remain untreated to this day (Rodriguez, & García, 2013).
In 1997, 65 years after the Tuskegee Syphilis Study began, and 25 years after it
ended, President Bill Clinton formally apologized on behalf of the government to those
who were affected. The United States eventually provided treatment and
compensation for victims, families, and heirs in Tuskegee, including funding to locate
the victims and pay attorneys’ fees. The ethical principle of equal justice strongly
suggests that similar relief should be provided for the Guatemalan victims. While the
U.S. now acknowledges this was an ethical failing, efforts to remediate the damage as
in the case of Tuskegee, have not been undertaken, In a 2013 article entitled, First, do
no harm: the US sexually transmitted disease experiments in Guatemala, The authors
write, “Although US President Barack Obama apologized in 2010, and although the
US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues found the Guatemalan
experiments morally wrong, little if anything has been done to compensate the victims
and their families.” (Rodriguez, & García, 2013). Researchers have an obligation to
practice their research in an ethical manner, but what does that mean exactly? They
must respect their participants' dignity and their autonomy, giving them the opportunity
to act without coercion. Researchers must obtain informed consent, which essentially
involves the participants' agreement and documentation of their agreement to
participate in a study after having been informed of everything that might reasonably
be expected of them as participants. Included in this is also a right to privacy so that
those being studied have their identity kept confidential as well as the right to opt out.
None of this was done in Guatemala nor in Tuskegee, and had they been informed,
they most likely would not have agreed to participate in the first place. Because of
these and other heinous examples of ethical violations, measures have been put in
place to offset this type of exploitation. One of the earliest ethics codes was the
Nuremberg Code, a set of 10 principles written in 1947, in conjunction with the trials
of Nazi physicians accused of shockingly cruel research on concentration camp
prisoners during World War II. It provided a standard against which to compare the
behavior of the men on trial, many of whom were eventuallyconvicted and either
imprisoned or sentenced to death. The Nuremberg Code was particularly clear about
the importance of carefully weighing risks against benefits and the need for informed
consent. The Declaration of Helsinki is a similar ethics code that was created by the
World Medical Council in 1964. Among the standards that it added to the Nuremberg
Code was that research with human participants should be based on a written
protocol, and it must include a detailed description of the research that is reviewed by
an independent committee. The Declaration of Helsinki has been revised several
times, most recently in 2004. In the U.S., concerns about the Tuskegee experiment
and others led to the publication of federal guidelines known as the Belmont Report.
The Belmont Report explicitly recognized the principle of seeking justice, including the
importance of conducting research in a way that distributes risks and benefits fairly
across different groups at the societal level. The Belmont Report became the basis of
a set of laws the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects that apply to
research conducted, supported, or regulated by the federal government. An extremely
important part of these regulations is that universities, hospitals, and other institutions
that receive support from the federal government must establish an Institutional
Review Board (IRB), a committee that is responsible for reviewing research protocols
for potential ethical problems. An IRB must consist of at least five people with varying
backgrounds, including members of different professions, scientists and nonscientists,
men and women, and at least one person not otherwise affiliated with the institution.
The IRB helps to make sure that the risks of the proposed research are minimized, the
benefits outweigh the risks, the research is carried out in a fair manner, and the
informed consent procedure is adequate. The federal regulations also distinguish
research that poses three levels of risk. Exempt research includes research on the
effectiveness of normal educational activities, the use of standard psychological
measures and surveys of a nonsensitive nature that are administered in a way that
maintains confidentiality, and research using existing data from public sources. It is
called exempt because the regulations do not apply to it. Minimal risk research
exposes participants to risks that are no greater than those encountered by healthy
people in daily life or during routine physical or psychological examinations. Minimal
risk research can receive an expedited review by one member of the IRB, or by a
separate committee under the authority of the IRB that can only approve minimal risk
research. (Many departments of psychology have such separate committees.) Finally,
at-risk research poses greater than minimal risk and must be reviewed by the entire
IRB.
Specific to human sexuality research, The American Psychological Association
(APA) is the governing body for much of the sex research undertaken. Ethical
Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (also known as the APA Ethics Code)
was first published in 1953 and has been revised several times since then, most
recently in 2002. It includes about 150 specific ethical standards that psychologists
and their students are expected to follow. Much of the APA Ethics Code concerns the
clinical practice of psychology advertising purposes, the most relevant part, is linked
here: American Psychological Association Ethics Code.
Just as the medical field grew in the West out of predominately white,
heteronormative, cisgender persons, so did the study of sexuality. Much of the body
of research in the field is done on white, heterosexual cisgender people. Despite the
world of human sexuality, being as vast and diverse as it is, research is slow to catch
up. New spaces and opportunities for different research are opening up as the field of
educators become more diverse but as we will learn throughout this book, there is
much still to be done. One space that facilitates engaging with sexuality beyond those
borders is afrosexology.com. Their mission to educate, explore and help people
reclaim their sexual agency which then give them agency in their larger lives is one
way in which current sex research is moving the needle towards equity.
In this section, we look at some practical advice for conducting ethical research.
Who knows, some of you may be undertaking sex research one day! Again, it is
important to remember that ethical issues arise well before you begin to collect data
and continue to arise through publication and beyond.
As the APA Ethics code notes in its introduction, “Lack of awareness or
misunderstanding of an ethical standard is not itself a defense to a charge of unethical
ethical responsibilities” (Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct,
2017). At a minimum, this means reading and understanding the relevant standards
of the APA Ethics Code, distinguishing minimal risk from at-risk research, and knowing
the specific policies and procedures of your institution including how to prepare and
submit a research protocol for institutional review board (IRB) review. If you are
conducting research as a course requirement, there may be specific course standards,
policies, and procedures. If any standard, policy, or procedure is unclear, or you are
unsure what to do about an ethical issue that arises, you must seek clarification. You
can do this by reviewing the relevant ethics codes, reading about how similar issues
have been resolved by others, or consulting with more experienced researchers, your
IRB, or your course instructor. Ultimately, you as the researcher must take
responsibility for the ethics of the research you conduct.
As you design your study, you must identify and minimize risks to participants via
the informed consent procedure, which in parts states:
A researcher must inform participants about (1) the purpose of the research,
expected duration, and procedures; (2) their right to decline to participate and to
withdraw from the research once participation has begun; (3) the foreseeable
consequences of declining or withdrawing; (4) reasonably foreseeable factors that
may be expected to influence their willingness to participate such as potential risks,
discomfort, or adverse effects; (5) any prospective research benefits; (6) limits of
confidentiality; (7) incentives for participation; and (8) whom to contact for questions
about the research and research participants' rights. They provide opportunity for the
prospective participants to ask questions and receive answers. (Ethical Principles of
Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2017).
Start by listing all the risks, including risks of physical and psychological harm
and violations of confidentiality. Remember that some risks might apply only to some
participants. For example, while many people would have no problem completing a
survey about their fear of various sex crimes, this may be triggering for those who
have been a victim of one of those crimes. This is why you should seek input from a
variety of people, including your research collaborators, more experienced
researchers, and even from non-researchers who might be better able to take the
perspective of a participant. Once you have identified the risks, you can often reduce
or eliminate many of them. One way is to modify the research design. For example,
you might be able to shorten or simplify the procedure to prevent boredom and
frustration. You might be able to replace upsetting or offensive stimulus materials (e.g.,
graphic photos) with less upsetting or offensive ones (e.g., milder photos of the sort
people are likely to see in the newspaper). A second way to minimize risks is to use a
pre-screening procedure to identify and eliminate participants who are at high risk. You
can do this in part through the informed consent process. For example, you can warn
participants that a survey includes questions about their fear of sex crimes and remind
them that they are free to withdraw if they think this might upset them. Prescreening
can also involve collecting data to identify and eliminate participants. A third way to
minimize risks is to take active steps to maintain confidentiality. You should keep
signed consent forms separate from any data that you collect, and in such a way that
no individual's name can be linked to their data. You should only collect information
that you actually need to answer your research question. If a person’s sexual
orientation or ethnicity is not clearly relevant to your research question, for example,
then do not ask them about it. Be aware also that certain data collection procedures
can lead to unintentional violations of confidentiality. When participants respond to an
oral survey in a shopping mall or complete a questionnaire in a classroom setting, it is
possible that their responses will be overheard or seen by others. If the responses are
personal, it is better to administer the survey or questionnaire individually in private or
to use other techniques to prevent the unintentional sharing of personal information.
Remember that deception can take a variety of forms, not all of which involve
actively misleading participants. It is also deceptive to allow participants to make
incorrect assumptions or simply withhold information about the full design or purpose
of the study. It is best to identify and minimize all forms of deception. Remember that
according to the APA Ethics Code, deception is ethically acceptable only if there is no
way to answer your research question without it. Therefore, if your research design
includes any form of active deception, you should consider whether it is truly
necessary. In general, it is considered acceptable to wait until debriefing before you
reveal your research question as long as you describe the procedure, risk and benefits
during the informed consent process. Once the risks of the research have been
identified and minimized, you need to weigh them against the benefits. This requires
identifying all the benefits. Remember to consider benefits to the research participants,
to science, and to society. If you are a student researcher, remember that one of the
benefits is the knowledge you will gain about how to conduct scientific research,
knowledge you can then use to complete your studies and succeed in graduate school
or in your career.
If the research poses minimal risk, no more than in people’s daily lives or in
routine physical or psychological examinations, then even a small benefit to
participants, science, or society is generally considered enough to justify it. If it poses
more than minimal risk, then there should be more benefits. If the research has the
potential to upset some participants, for example, then it becomes more important that
the study be well designed and answer a scientifically interesting research question or
have clear practical implications. It would be unethical to subject people to pain, fear,
or embarrassment for minimal scientific gain. Research that has the potential to cause
harm that is more than minor, or lasts for more than a short time, is rarely considered
justified by its benefits. Once you have settled on a research design, you need to
create your informed consent and debriefing procedures. Start by deciding whether
informed consent is necessary according to APA Standard 8.05. If informed consent is
necessary, thereare several things you should do. First, when you recruit participants
whether it is through word of mouth, posted advertisements, or a participant pool,
provide them with as much information about the study as you can. This will allow
those who might find the study objectionable to avoid it. Second, prepare a script or
talking points to help you explain the study to your participants in simple everyday
language. This should include a description of the procedure, the risks and benefits,
and their right to withdraw at any time. Third, create an informed consent form that
covers all the points in APA Standard 8.02a that participants can read and sign after
you have described the study to them. Your university, department, or course instructor
may have a sample consent form that you can adapt for your own study. If not, an
Internet Search will turn up several samples. Remember that if appropriate, both the
oral and written parts of the informed consent process should include the fact that you
are keeping some information about the design or purpose of the study from them but
that you will reveal it during debriefing.
Debriefing is similar to informed consent in that you cannot necessarily expect
participants to read and understand written debriefing forms. So again, it is best to
write a script or set of talking points, with the goal of being able to explain the study in
simple everyday language. During debriefing, you should reveal the research question
and full design of the study. For example, if participants are tested under only one
condition, then you should explain what happened in the other conditions. If you
deceived your participants, you should reveal this as soon as possible, apologize for
the deception, explain why it was necessary, and correct any misconceptions that
participants might have as a result. Debriefing is also a good time to provide additional
benefits to research participants, by giving them relevant practical information or
referrals to other sources of help. For example, in a study of attitudes toward domestic
abuse, you could provide pamphlets about domestic abuse and referral information to
the university counseling center for those who might want it. Remember to schedule
plenty of time for the informed consent and debriefing processes. They cannot be
effective if you have to rush through them. The next step is to get institutional approval
for your research, based on the specific policies and procedures at your institution or
for your course. This will generally require writing a protocol that describes the purpose
of the study, the research design and procedure, the risks and benefits, the steps taken
to minimize risks, and the informed consent and debriefing procedures. Do not think
of the institutionalapproval process as merely an obstacle to overcome but as an
opportunity to think through the ethics of your research and to consult with others who
are likely to have more experience or different perspectives than you. If the IRB has
questions or concerns about your research, address them promptly and in good faith.
This might even mean making further modifications to your research design and
procedure before resubmitting your protocol. Your concern with ethics should not end
when your study receives institutional approval. It now becomes important to stick to
the protocol you submitted, or to seek additional approval for anything other than a
minor change. During the research, you should monitor your participants for
unanticipated reactions, and seek feedback from them during debriefing. Be alert also
for potential violations of confidentiality. Keep the consent forms and the data safe and
separate from each other and make sure that no one, intentionally or unintentionally,
has access to participants personal information. Finally, you must maintain your
integrity through the publication process and beyond. Address publication credit; who
will be authors on the research and the order of authors with your collaborators early
and avoid plagiarism in your writing. Remember that our scientific goal is to learn about
the way the world actually is and that your scientific duty is to report on your results
honestly and accurately. So do not be tempted to fabricate data or alter your results in
any way. Besides, unexpected results are often as interesting or more so than
expected ones.
While these standards of ethics put forth by the APA are seen as a definitive
guide in the pursuit of ethical research, even the organization itself, the APA has failed
to abide by them in large scale research that has been widely published, cited and
used as justification for policy and funding decisions nationwide. Many historically
relevant psychological studies are clear violations of the current standards set by the
American Psychological Association (APA) and were founded on the basis of systemic
racism. Experiments like the aforementioned Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Jane Elliot’s
Blue/Brown Eyes Exercise examined in the film, A Class Divided (full film) |
FRONTLINE, and The Doll Test Landmark Cases: Brown v Board Doll Test (CSPAN)
hold a variety of unethical practices in the way they were produced, but are still
considered to be groundbreaking contributions to the current psychological landscape.
Additionally, many early thinkers including Ronald Fisher, a key player in the
development of statistical science, also supported racism and eugenics. There is a
laundry list of connections between systemic racism and psychology, which is why the
APA’s decision to apologize for its role in incorporating racism within the discipline of
psychology is critical to the development of psychological practices to come, but not
the only solution. The APA cannot completely correct the wrongs of the racist practices
put forth in the past, however, the Association has a responsibility to put forth more
ethical practices that do not further marginalize and misdiagnose people of color. To
this day, there is an overrepresentation of Black Americans who are admitted into
psychiatric hospitals, suicide rates for Black Youth continue to rise, and Black
Americans are more likely to be diagnosed with disorders like schizophrenia as
compared to White Americans.
As American culture strives to become more centered around the emotional
wellness of all people and seeks to condemn dehumanization, institutions must
develop better practices for building spaces of healing.
Research is a building block of science, and without it, so many of our nation's
innovations would have not been made. The early sex researchers discussed here
paved the way for present day sex research. Learning how to undertake a research
project is something most college students will experience during their time in college.
The development of the process of research takes into consideration multiple variables
with an important focus on ethics. The absolute need for ethical guidelines in research
has been made vividly clear. Without policies and procedures that guide researchers
(and sometimes even with them), violations that harm human subjects have taken
place with grave consequences. Chapter 1: What is Human Sexuality describes
multiple incidents of ethical violations throughout history and up until present day. In
highlighting some of these, we see that in many cases, marginalized populations are
the ones most at risk. It is important to remember both recent and distant past bad
practices in order to do better. We must do better and need to both acknowledge and
understand why ethical violations took place. Admitting that bias, racism and other
forms of prejudice allowed for certain persons to be exploited when others remained
protected by an ethical framework should trouble the reader and prompt them to learn
from this shameful past.
