Week 3 - Assignment: Assess a Classic Psychological Experiment

After completing the assigned readings and watching the provided video links, review the following classic psychological experiments:

• Johnson's Monster Study
• Loftus, E.F. (1999). Lost in the Mail: Misrepresentations and Misunderstandings. Ethics & Behavior, 9(1), 51.
• Milgram's Obedience Experiment
• Watson's Little Albert Experiment
• Zimbardo's Stanford Prisoner Experiment

After you have become familiar with these five classic studies, select one. Using headers to organize your paper, answer the following questions:

1. Scientific Merit / Knowledge Gained. 

• What are the benefits of this study (to society, research, or subjects)? 
• What are the practical implications (i.e., real-world applications of the findings)? 
• What are likely consequences to society if this study had not been conducted?
• What were the potential psychological costs of this study? 
• Were the research participants in the study at risk for psychological injury? 
• Could this type of research have been conducted without the use of deception?
• Do you feel the use of deception was justified given the potential cost to participants? 
• If you were a member of a human subjects’ Institutional Review Board, would you approve the research described in the article? 
• Do you feel that the contributions of this study outweigh the costs? 
• Would you have minded if you discovered you participated in that study?
• Would you want to (or be willing to) participate as a research assistant for this study?

1. Risk of Psychological Injury. 
2. Deception. 
3. Decision. 
4. Participation. 
5. Research experience. 

Be sure to incorporate information from the Fisher text as well as include information from at least two academic journals discussing the ethics of the experiment.

Length: 3-5 pages