While it is a hard choice to decide whether or not to continue this study given the
situation at hand, I do not agree that you should continue the study knowing about the
type of behavior that is going on. Although I do like your approach to offer therapeutic
services after the study, I still do not feel it gives enough validation to justify continuing
your research while there is a chance that the parties involved in the hazing and bullying
could be severely injured or even cause death. While I know you have mentioned taking
specific approaches on your end to try and avoid any harm to the participants of the
study, there is still harm taking place that needs to be addressed immediately. Your
solution would only notify leadership of the bullying and hazing after your study is
concluded and would still allow ample time for unnecessary emotional and physical
damage to take place. As stated in the APA Code of Conduct in section 3.03,
psychologists should not be knowingly involved in the harassment of participants in their
study (APA, 2017). Even though you are not directly harassing your participants, it would
still be allowing harassment, bullying, and hazing in your study. My hope is that you
understand the risk I have placed before you and will reconsider continuing your
research if the hazing or bullying continues or worsens. Thank you for contacting me
right away about your research project and having encountered several ethical
dilemmas. You were correct in referencing one of the ethical dilemmas to Ethical
Standard 3.04 Avoiding Harm part (b) according to the text of the American
Psychological Association (2017), you do have the responsibility to not be
involved in any of the behavior you mentioned. I will point out that you also have
the obligation to prevent any of the behaviors of part (a) of the same Ethical
Principle as this part covers all participants in the research.
The first solution you proposed as an ethically viable response to the bullying you
mention that you should supply therapy to the new recruits being severally bullied.
While this may be a healthy course of action for them after the traumatic event,
your involvement with the new recruits is limited to researching the military
training. This is not an ethically viable response to addressing the dilemma. The
second ethically viable response appears as part of the final debriefing process in
which you decrease any harm you observed. If the unethical behavior and harm
rises to the level described earlier with hazing and your obligation to not
participate in such, then action must be taken prior to the completion of the
research. The debriefing process is still an important part of the process to help
make all aware of the danger for future training.
You are on the right track in the need to move forward with the research but only
when the harmful behavior is addressed in an ethical way. I recommend reporting
the harmful behavior to the applicable leadership that supervises the staff
members. This solution satisfies the requirements of Ethical Standard 1.05
Reporting Ethical Violations along with 1.02 Conflicts Between Ethics and Law,
Regulations, or Other Governing Legal Authority, according to American
Psychological Association (2017). These standards address the need to report the
harmful behavior.
If you have any questions or concerns after reviewing this, you may reach me at
(555) 555-1234
