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What are the individual
verdicts? Are there any studies that split the committee or caused a stalemate?
2. Analyze and summarize specific features of proposals that were found objectionable.
3. Review specific arguments that were effective or ineffective in persuading the IRB to approve the
research.
4. Were there stylistic or content features of these proposals that made some more likely to be accepted
than others; for example, reference to prior research, explicit mention of benefits of research, basic
versus applied orientation, rhetoric, etc.?
DISCUSSION, EXTENSIONS, AND EXPERIMENTAL VARIATIONS
1. Does the concern of an IRB unnecessarily limit scientific research? What are the drawbacks to such
a system of review?
2. What should the composition be of an IRB at your school, i.e., what constituencies should be
represented?
3. How might the status of the researcher influence the IRB, and how can this possible bias be
handled?
4. Can there ever be true informed consent for populations in coercive environments such as prisons
or for poor people who need the money they get for participating in the research?
5. How can research be conducted to demonstrate that deception has negative consequences if it is
judged unethical to deceive subjects?
6. What are the ethical issues in the treatment of animal subjects? (Perhaps obtain guidelines for such
research from your school.)
7. Make connections with previous sections:
. How ethical was the section on guilt, in which one volunteer was instructed to perform
actions outside the classroom so that he would “feel” like a criminal?
. Is suicide intervention ethical? Should people be allowed to freely make their own decision
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in this matter? What are the limits and safeguards on what can be done under the name of
“education” or “therapy” that is not “research”?
. Relate this section to the one on impression management by analyzing how the
experimenters tried to manage favorable impressions. Have two student observers code the
researchers’ behavior and the confirmatory or disconfirmatory questions of the committee.
8. Discuss the issue of living in an “experimenting society,” in which we assume that adequate
research will be conducted before new drugs are put on the market or we are exposed to certain
products. Somewhere in that process, humans or animals were subjects in that research related to
pain, disease, stress, and other noxious experiences.
9. Raise the problems with “debriefing” subjects after an allowable deception has been conducted in
an experiment. Can people really be returned to the condition they were in before experiencing an
experimental treatment, given that it was intense enough to influence their behavior?
10. Consider the public’s positive reaction to “Candid Camera” deception episodes. What does that
say about us?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Baumrind, D. (1964). Some thoughts on ethical issues in psychology. American Psychologist, 19, 421-423.
Kom J. H. (1984). Coverage of research ethics in introductory and social psychology tests. Teaching of
Psychology, 11, 146-149.
Steininger, M., Newell, J. D., & Garcia, L. (1984). Ethical issues in psychology. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.
Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special
reference to the Stanford prison experiment. Cognition, 2, 243-256.
One survey of IRB actions presents the following data, which the class might find useful. The data are
for all types of institutions—universities, medical school, hospitals and others (2389 were surveyed).
IRB Actions Percent
Board modified 33
Modified after an informal discussion with IRB members 7
More information requested 10
No change 44
No data available 6
Total: 100
Here is a description of the infamous U.S. Public Health Service study of syphilis, in which the control
group received a placebo—and most died. It supports arguments for strong IRBs.
The study was started in 1932 by the service’s venereal disease section. It involved 625 black men, mostly
poor and uneducated, from the county surrounding Tuskegee, Alabama, which then had the highest
syphilis rate in the nation. Two hundred of the men did not have syphilis and served as a control group for
comparison purposes; 425 had latent (and therefore noncommunicable) syphilis and received little if any
treatment for it. As an incentive to participate in the study, they were offered free treatment for any other
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illnesses, free hot lunches, and free burial after autopsies were performed.
At the time the test began, treatment for syphilis was uncertain at best and involved a lifelong series of risky
injections of such toxic substances as bismuth, arsenic, and mercury. However, in the years following
World War II, the PHS’s test became a matter of medical morality. Penicillin had been found almost totally
effective against syphilis, and by war’s end it had become generally available. Nevertheless, the PHS did
not use the drug on those participating in the study unless the patient asked for it.
Recent reviews of 125 cases by the PHS’s Center for Disease Control in Atlanta found that half had
syphilitic heart valve damage. Twenty-eight had died of cardiovascular or central nervous system problems
that were complications of syphilis.
The study’s findings on the effects of untreated syphilis have been reported periodically in medical journals
for years. It was not until 1972, however, that an Associated Press correspondent noticed and reported that
the lack of treatment was intentional. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, a member of the
subcommittee that oversees PHS’s budget, called the study “a moral and ethical nightmare” and an
investigation soon followed.
The probe did not help much, for the damage had already been done. The officials responsible for the study
have long since retired. Present CDC officials agree that such a study could not be conducted today.
Unfortunately, their solicitude is small consolation for the 74 of the original 425 syphilitics still surviving.
The agency is treating them for whatever other diseases or physical problems they might have, but it can do
little for their syphilis. The average age of the survivors is 74, and the massive penicillin therapy necessary
to arrest their long-ignored affliction could do more harm than good.
For them, the PHS reversal has come too late. But the notoriety of this study has done much to raise the
consciousness of researchers and research service administrators and legislators.
PROPOSAL 1
Title: Resolution of Social Conflicts
Department:. Social Anthropology
Proposal: Many groups face social conflicts that, without adequate means of resolution, erupt into group
hostility and destructive behavior. On the basis of previous research by M. Sherif, we believe that the critical
variable in the conflict resolution process is the availability of superordinate goals, that is, common goals or
objectives that can be fulfilled only via cooperative rather than competitive strategies.
Subjects will be housed in an environment that is new to them (a summer camp) with others who are
strangers. This is to control for extraneous influences and prior group formation. The subjects will be
divided into two groups, each of which will be housed separately, and led by a team of adult supervisor-
observers. There will be four phases to our study: (1) development of strong within-group cohesion and
solidarity in each of the two camp groups; (2) creation of the opportunity for conflict between the two
groups; (3) introduction of a common problem (e.g., breakdown in water supply to the camp) facing both
groups; and (4) observation of strategies of resolution.
The duration of each phase will be: Phase 1-five days; Phase 2-three days; Phrase 3-one day; Phase 4-five
days—a total of two weeks.
Trained observers will record all interactions that occur during meals, sports, recreation, and at other times.
Subjects: 60 lower-socioeconomic status children whose parents agree to send them to this experimental
summer camp for two weeks. There will be no fees at all for transportation, food, tuition, etc., in return for
the use of the children as subjects. The children will not be informed of the experimental nature of the camp,
but parents will sign an informal consent form (submitted to this committee separately). All parents will
receive a report of the study in which children’s identity will be confidential. There will be adequate
medical and health supervision at all times during this study.
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Remarks: It is expected that we will learn some important principles to help in the design of environments to
promote cooperation and minimize competition. Such “social engineering” may remove conflicts not only
in gangs but also between ethnic and racial groups and be of value even at the political-international level
(witness cooperation among oil-deprived nations).
PROPOSAL 2
Title: Low-Pressure Determinants of Compliance
Department: Psychology
Proposal: Research done in the mid-1960s by Freedman and Fraser demonstrated that compliance with a
small request greatly increased the probability of future compliance with a large request, even when the
large request was made two weeks after the small request. The large request made in this research required
the subjects to allow their home property to be used in specific ways. It was thus a request for acquiescence.
Our study will replicate the Freedman and Fraser investigation, except that the large request will call on
subjects to actively carry out a rather time-consuming task.
Subjects: The subjects will be householders in a suburban middle-class community. They will be contacted
in their homes, in person, and treated in one of three ways: (a) informed about a new effort to persuade the
city council to enact an ordinance prohibiting research and development of antipersonnel weapons in the
city limits (FAMILIARIZATION CONDITION); (b) asked to sign a petition to the city council advocating
such an ordinance (SMALL REQUEST CONDITION); (c) agree to sign a petition when approached to do so
later (AGREEMENT CONDITION)—Half the subjects in each of these three conditions will later be
approached and asked to invite their neighbors to a coffee meeting in their homes to generate support and
raise funds for this effort. The other half will be approached and asked to hold a similar meeting to generate
support and raise funds for an effort to enact new pollution control ordinances.
The study therefore includes a control group that is merely contacted, a group that agrees to a small request,
and a group that actually carries out the small request. Subjects from all three groups are then asked to carry
out major requests that are either related or unrelated to their previous experience.
Remarks: Events of the past few years have caused great concern among Americans about political
manipulation and commercial exploitation of the public. In politics, “dirty tricks” has become a household
phrase. Advertising through the media is widely believed to influence consumer preferences. We believe
that understanding of the subtle tactics political organizers and salespeople attempt to use can enable
private individuals to behave in a more independent fashion. Our interest focuses on low-pressure
techniques precisely because many people are sensitized to high-pressure tactics and can presumably
defend themselves against those tactics to some extent. Low-pressure tactics, on the other hand, may go
unrecognized by the target population and thus render them more susceptible to insidious influence
attempts.
PROPOSAL 3
Title: Obedience in Response to Authority
Department: Educational Psychology
Proposal: This study will replicate and extend research by Milgram and by Sheridan and King on the
conditions under which adults will administer painful or potentially lethal punishment to a victim in
obedience to the instructions of an authority figure. Male and female subjects will be asked to serve as the
“teacher” in a study of the effects of punishment on learning. A fluffy, attractive puppy in a cage with an
electrifiable grid floor will be presented as the learner attempting to learn to discriminate steady lights from
lights flickering at rates near the critical fusion frequency for dogs. The subject’s task is to administer a series
of increasingly intense shocks to the puppy, increasing the shock level after each error. The panel of
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switches on the shock generator will be marked to indicate a range of 15 to 450 volts, increasing in 15-volt
steps. />
In fact, the shocks the puppy experiences will be restricted to levels insufficiently intense to produce tissue
damage. For half the subjects of each sex, a small amount of anesthetic gas will be introduced into the dog’s
cage so that the animal appears to slump into unresponsiveness because of the shocks.
Dependent measures in this study will include: (a) the maximum shock administered by the subject; (b) the
duration of shocks administered; (c) subject’s verbal and expressive behavior during the experiment.
Remarks: History is tragically rich in examples of atrocities carried out by people whose principal
motivation is responsiveness to instructions issued by an authority figure. Thus, ordinary German citizens
participated in the torture and massacre of Jews, American aviators dropped atomic bombs on Japanese
cities, and flesh-shredding antipersonnel weapons are currently being used in Indochina by technicians
whose remote control devices prevent them from even seeing the results of their actions.
It is vital that we understand the conditions under which people will and will not carry out instructions
leading to inhumane acts so that adequate legal and social safeguards against the abuse of authority may
be instituted without delay. The subversion of the American political process revealed through the
Watergate investigations only highlights the urgency of research in this area.
The puppy victims will experience some distress in the course of each session. While the investigators do
not consider an animal’s suffering something to be treated casually, it is felt that this research design is
compatible with the traditional requirement that animal suffering be justified by the human benefits of the
resulting knowledge. Variations on the design will include creating a “compliance hierarchy,” with a series
of subjects passing orders down the line to the final executor.
PROPOSAL 4
Title: Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison
Department: Sociology
Proposal: The institution of prison is of special interest for social scientists because of the unique character of
the social relations and interactions that occur there. Several years ago, research by Zimbardo and his
colleagues demonstrated that prison behavior could be scientifically studied under the control conditions of
a “simulated” laboratory environment. They found that behavioral syndromes associated with prison life
(for example, guard brutality, prisoner disintegration) could be reliably elicited in an experimental milieu,
with little loss in the authenticity of reactions and within a relatively convenient time.
In our modest proposal, we will attempt to extend this early research in several crucial directions.
Generalization from the Zimbardo study to social behavior in real prisons is limited by the fact that it
employed normal, healthy, middle-class college students—precisely the kind of people least likely to enter a
real prison. In our study we propose to utilize a subject population of lower class, preferably minority,
persons as prisoners, and a group of working-class white males as guard personnel. In this way we will be
better able to draw inferences about the parameters which control the behavior in actual prison
populations. In addition, our study will employ much larger groups of prisoners and guards than the 20
used in the original study, since it is only in this way that statistically reliable results may be obtained and
valid conclusions drawn about prison behavior. Finally, we propose increasing the length of the study to
several months (depending on budgetary constraints) in order to investigate the more important effects of
long-term imprisonment, rather than simply short-term adjustment. We will also study, in a second phase of
the research, whether female guards and prisoners act as the males do, and whether different types of
training of the guards yield more “positive” outcomes.
Because our simulated prison environment will be designed to maximize experimenter surveillance and
data collection, we are confident that all deleterious effects will be carefully monitored and recorded.
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Administrative Panel for Human Subjects PROTOCOL _____________
in Behavioral Science Research (Leave blank)
Request for Institutional Review/Approval
Regular Review __ Expedited Review __ Date__________
Principal Investigator(s) Faculty______ Student______ (check one
If student, please indicate faculty
sponsor: ________________
Department____________________________
Phone/ext where you may be contacted____________
(Faculty Sponsor Signature)
Title of Research Proposal__________________
For Sponsored Projects (Funding by outside agency):
Circle one:
New Competing Project is under For Unsponsored Projects:
Proposal Continuation Renewal an existing grant New Renewal
Funding Agency___________________________ Proposed start date:
Grant/Contract No._____________________________________
(Include P.I. name if other than one given above)
Proposed Start Date_______________________
/> Approval certification (HHS Form 596) to be sent
to: _____________________________________
(Name & Agency if available)
For Renewal of Approval (whether sponsored or unsponsored)
(Please submit at least 30 days PRIOR to expiration date of previous approval)
Date of previous approval_______________ Protocol No. (if known)_______________
In addition to a copy of original protocol please provide a brief progress report of the previous year’s
activity which includes:
1. Number of subjects involved
2. Problems or complications (if any)
3. Description of results to date
4. Any changes or modifications since original approval was given
5. Project plans for the coming year (for which approval is being requested)
6. A copy of the consent form you are using for this study
Name and address to which human subject approval memo should be sent (if other than investigator and
department indicated above):
*Give paragraph # which qualifies protocol for expedited review (see reverse side)
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INSTRUCTIONS
A short (1—3 pages) summary of the project is needed for review by the Human Subjects Panel; this should
include a description of the purpose of the study, the procedures which will involve human subjects, the
length of their involvement, and the means for ensuring confidentiality of data regarding the subjects.
Please avoid any technical terms not readily understood by individuals outside your discipline. You do not
need to include a copy of your complete proposal, but please do include copies of any questionnaire or
structured interviews (if any).
Some specific points to be included in the summary are the following:
Risk or Benefit to the Subject
This is a major concern of the Panel—please detail any deception, possible psychological or physical risk to
the subject, and benefit (if any). (Benefit does not include any compensation the subject may be given for
participation.)
Projects involving deception raise certain ethical problems often best dealt with by debriefing subjects after
their participation. Please describe your debriefing procedures. If you choose not to debrief, this decision
must be justified in your summary. In addition, for your protection as well, it is advisable to have a second
consent form after the subject is debriefed, reaffirming permission to release information received from the
subject during the study.
Description of Sample Population
This should include where the study will take place, age of subjects, the number of subjects, and the length
of involvement time, and must identify precisely the type of subjects if other than normal.
Description of the Disclosure of Information and Consent
A consent form must describe the project in nontechnical language; it must clearly indicate that
participation is voluntary, that the subject is free to withdraw his/her consent and discontinue
participation at any time, and that individual privacy will be maintained in publication of any data
resulting from the study.
In addition, the consent form must include the name and telephone number of the researcher as a contact if
further information is sought by the subject, and also the following statement (although not necessarily this
wording): “If I have any concerns or dissatisfaction with any aspect of this program at any time, I may
report grievances–anonymously, if desired–to the Human Subjects Coordinator, Sponsored Projects Office,
Stanford, CA 94305.” A copy of the consent form should be given to the subject.
Projects involving children often require a consent form for the child (especially those from upper
elementary and high school levels) as well as the parent.
Include copies of consent form(s).
To request review of your protocol, please send eight copies of this application and all attachments to:
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL FORMAT
All proposals must follow the following outlined format.
Please answer the questions, identifying each by number. Please type all responses.
1. Describe the purpose of your study and the procedures that human subjects will undergo in your
research design. What are the risks and possible consequences of these procedures?