Question

For many of the ethical dilemmas below, there could be more than one correct answer. However, you logic or reasoning are a very important part of your answer. For each of the ethical dilemmas, first identify what is the major ethical issue at question. Second, is the situation as described ethical or unethical? Finally, provide a one sentence explanation for your decision (i.e., explain why it is ethical or why you'd consider it to be unethical).

62 Research Methods in Psychology 8. You are interested in the way people react to helping someone in need. Therefore, a confederate working with you goes to the cafeteria and acts like he's choking on his food. You measure the number of people who actually help the confederate. Your confederate then acts either grateful for the individual's help or laughs at them for being so gullible. You then measure their reaction to the confederate. 9. You have been conducting research in an area for the past 10 years and have a very influential theory. However, in a new study that you've been conducting you replicate four experiments that contradict your theory and show that your theory is wrong. You decide not to publish or present this research since it actually supports the theory of one of your competitors. 10. You are conducting research on a new technique that should help increase the amount of information that people can remember. You have a participant scheduled for your study and know that individual from a class that you're teaching. Since this person isn't very bright, you assign this individual to the control condition which is less likely to see a memory improvement 11. You have submitted a research manuscript for publication. Although it was done inadvertently, you didn't provide a citation for an idea that you obtained from a well-cited manuscript in your research area. You decide that this information is common knowledge to individuals involved in this research area so you decide not to worry about it if the reviewers don't notice. od the manuscript that you are interested in

Answer 1

8) Firstly, major ethical issue here is, fooling the people in the cafeteria just to see how many of them lend a helping hand. Secondly, the situation described is unethical because it leads to mistrust in people as they might think before helping someone, when someone might genuinely need help. Thus, it's an unethical situation.