One unethical psychological experiment similar to those we read about in chapter nine was “The Monkey Drug Trials.” The monkey drug trials were an experiment conducted in 1969 to expand our knowledge of the effects of drug use and cause of addiction. The idea does not seem so bad from the surface; we benefit and learn a lot from the behaviors of monkeys due to their similarities to humans. However, when I read more about the procedures of the experiment, I was shocked to learn the selfishness of humans. It seems as if we care about ourselves and nothing else. These moneys (and in some cases rats) were locked up in metal cages and one of their arms was pinned down. It appeared as if the monkeys were able to free themselves by pushing a lever accessible by their free arm. However, contrary to belief, when the lever was pushed the monkey was injected with a drug or alcohol or a mixture of the narcotics. Over time the monkeys became dependent on the drugs and were frequently pushing the lever to inject themselves. These helpless monkeys were caged and for 16 months in order for scientists to study the effects and addictiveness of various drugs. Many of the monkeys suffered hallucination leading them to break bones or rip out their hair unknowingly. Even worst, a number of monkeys did not survive the duration on the study due to over dose or sever injury. This experiment was most noticeably unethical for animal cruelty. Such experiment today would never be allowed.

sources:
http://listverse.com/2008/09/07/top-10-unethical-psychological-experiments/
http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/science//item/unethical_experiments_drugs_addiction_monkeys

The most reoccurring unethical experiment I could find was the famous Stanford prison experiment. The Stanford prison experiment was a psychological experiment based on the effects of becoming a prisoner or a prison guard. It was conducted in 1971 by Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty four students were selected based on lack of psychological issues, crime history and mental disabilities to live in a basement for 14 days. The guards and prisoners were chosen by a coin toss and rapidly adapted to their situations; two prisoners even had to be taken out early. Within days, the guards were judged to have sadistic tendencies and the prisoners were beaten down emotionally. The guards would not allow the prisoners to go to the bathroom; some prisoners were even the victims of simulated homosexual sex. On the second day, the prisoners rioted and the guards reacted by attacking them with fire extinguishers. The police up to this point were helping by booking the prisoners and taking them to jail before they were transferred to their mock prison. On the fourth day, the prisoners were talking of an escape so the guards with help from Zimbardo wanted to move them to a more secure location like a police station, but the police said they could no longer participate in the experiment. Zimbardo later on mentions that as his own absorption into the experiment and his role as superintendent of the prison. After six days, Zimbardo realized that both the guards and the prisoners were too involved in their roles and had to stop the experiment early. A critic to the experiment was Erich Fromm, who claimed that the affects of being imprisoned does change major behaviors, sighting the Nazi Concentration camps.

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a clinical study that lasted 40 years, from 1932 to 1972. 399 black men were involved in the study.The main idea was to study the natural stages of syphilis so as to better understand the disease and find treatments for it. However, the researchers did not care about the well-being and welfare of the men. For example, to ensure that the men would show up for the possibly dangerous, painful, diagnostic and non-therapeutic spinal tap, the doctors sent the 400 patients a misleading letter titled, "Last Chance for Special Free Treatment" . The study also required all participants to undergo an autopsy after death—in order to receive funeral benefits. After penicillin was discovered as a cure, researchers continued to deny such treatment to many study participants. Many patients were lied to and given placebo treatments— so that researchers could observe the progression of the fatal disease. By the end of the study in 1972, only 74 of the test subjects were alive. 28 of the original 399 men had died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis.
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male

Two psychologists named Steve Maier and Mark Seligam conducted an experiment in 1965 with three groups of dogs that were placed in harness. The dogs from group #1 were released from the harness after a certain amount of time without any harm done. Group #2 had a pair of dogs leashed together while getting electrical shocks sent throughout their bodies that could be ended with a stop button. Group #3 was also paired together, while one received shocks that couldn't be stopped. The shocks came randomly, which cause "learned helplessness." The dogs assumed nothing could be done about the shocks and therefore dogs in group #3 displayed symptoms of clinical depression. Then the next experiment was in a box. They placed group #3 dogs in a box with shocks, but the shocks could have been stopped if the dogs jumped out the box. The dogs gave up, showing "learned helplessness."

This experiment was unethical for three reasons. (1) Dogs do not have reasoning skills like the human brain, to have figured out if they jump out the box, they wouldn't be shocked anymore. (2) The experiment was ineffective; because the dogs ended up suffering and the experiment didn't help or improve anything and (3) abuse should never be used for psychological experiments, especially on animals when they don't have a choice to volunteer for the experiment like humans do.

I discovered the MK-ULTRA experiment conducted by the CIA during the 1950s-‘70s. In these trials, “Their purpose was to study mind-control, interrogation methods and behaviour modification.” Subjects included CIA employees, doctors, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and more. They were given mind-altering substances such as amphetamines, LSD, mescaline, alcohol, marijuana, morphine, heroin and more. At the beginning of the experiment, the goals of the conductors were to discover how these drugs could benefit the CIA’s protection by altering minds, memory, paralyzing limbs, or the ability to converse in general. During the mid 1960’s, the goals of MK-ULTRA changed. The project was renamed MK-SEARCH and the goal was to find a drug that forced people to tell the truth during interrogation. In the eyes of the CIA, this truth-drug would have aided in questioning soviet-spies. What disturbs me the most about this two decade long experiment is the patients lack of knowledge about the drugs they were administered. As subjects to a study, it is their right to know what is given to them so they may have complete understanding in the situation to make a rational decision. It was extremely unethical to not inform the volunteers of the drugs they were ingesting. This is probably why all materials involving MK-ULTRA, which later evolved to MK-SEARCH, was eventually ordered to be destroyed by the CIA.

source: *http://www.highestfive.com/mind/5-unethical-psych-experiments/

Reading through the latest posts, I see a few new categories: experiments that violate the subjects' fundamental human rights (through infliction of pain, for example), experiments that inflict lasting shame, experiments that correct behavior deemed to be deviant that is not necessarily so.

Chester, you need an experiment that is not already one of our readings from the chapter!

carol_hasan wrote:

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a clinical study that lasted 40 years, from 1932 to 1972. 399 black men were involved in the study.The main idea was to study the natural stages of syphilis so as to better understand the disease and find treatments for it. However, the researchers did not care about the well-being and welfare of the men. For example, to ensure that the men would show up for the possibly dangerous, painful, diagnostic and non-therapeutic spinal tap, the doctors sent the 400 patients a misleading letter titled, "Last Chance for Special Free Treatment" . The study also required all participants to undergo an autopsy after death—in order to receive funeral benefits. After penicillin was discovered as a cure, researchers continued to deny such treatment to many study participants. Many patients were lied to and given placebo treatments— so that researchers could observe the progression of the fatal disease. By the end of the study in 1972, only 74 of the test subjects were alive. 28 of the original 399 men had died of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis.
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male

This truly is a horrible experiment even tho the intentions was good, learning more about the illness, the way of gathering information is unethical and horrible and I dare to say, one form of abuse and torment of the patients as well as a fraud, giving the misleading letter title.


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80x80 pixels made me look slim on that picture!

The unethical psychology experiment that I found was the Well of Despair, or Pit of Despair. The Pit of Despair was an experiment by psychologist Harry Harlow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that tried simulating a model animal form of clinical depression. There was a stainless steal vertical chamber that had 3/8 inch wire mesh floor. It had a compartment with a food box and water bottle holder, and was roofed by a pyramid top, which was designed to stop subjects from climbing and hanging from the top of the chamber. Harlow put baby monkeys, some of which had already bonded with others in the chamber for up to one year. The goal of the experiment was to break those bonds and create symptoms of depression. Within a couple days, the monkeys stopped moving around their chamber and began to remain huddled in a corner. Once the monkeys were removed they were all found to be psychotic and most of them did not recover completely. Even the happiest monkey came out damaged, so the conclusion was that even a happy, normal childhood was no defense against clinical depression. Reaction to the experiment was negative, and many of Harlow’s own students spoke out against him. Some claimed that Harlow merely “kept the experiment going to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive”. It was clear from the early beginnings that the experiment was working and that the monkeys were starting to feel psychotic and depressed, for Harlow to keep the experiment going was pointless.

Carol,
The experiment you described is medical more than it is psychological.

The Robbers cave experiment of 1954 was an experiment that consisted of 24 boys, 12 years old and of similar settled, lower middle-class Protestant backgrounds. The boys were then split into two groups. They were then, in their individual groups picked up by bus on successive days and transported to a 200 acre Boy Scouts of America camp which was completely surrounded by Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. For the first stage the groups were left seprate from each other so they could bond in the individual groups. When each group found out there was another group in the camp the insisted on a competition between the two groups. which began stage two. Since the two groups werent getting along they staff made some problems where both groups would have to work together as one to solve. One problem was the drinking water problem. they made the water only go to one faucet that they then clogged with a sack and the boys had to work together to get it out. They also used the securing the movie problem. To secure a movie it costed $15 and the camp was only going to pay for some. So the boys had to figure out how much to pay and they said $3.50 per group even though some of the boys from one group had decided to go home.

Post Question 2
Research and describe one psychological experiment similar to those described throughout Chapter 9 that you believe was unethical. You don't need to analyze or comment on the experiment for the discussion board, just describe the experiment. But make sure it's clear what's so unethical about it in your description. Make sure you choose a psychological experiment, no natural sciences.


In approaching the influence driven by the leading alcohol companies and there corrupted plots they use to distribute their cigarettes, you can see the social pressures used to influence its coolness. The cool of alcohol is a social pressure influenced by the more popular environments, such as bars and clubs in our, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice Beach areas. As a youth the threat of this peer pressure and more are eventually going to take place at one point. and these companies are aware of it. They Make sure that they make away of advertising in areas where the youth sees it. Why? Because they know to get us on their product when where young. In studying how peer pressure works, many teens are more influenced to trying alcohol and tobacco before they are able to legally try it. The more common thing observed is when teens are left to face pressures by themselves, they are frequent to accepted the pressure than declining it. The younger they are the more they are available to trying the temptation as well. When teens have relations with other teens in morally motivated environments the outcome of drinking alcohol is less. The idea of drinking is morally unethical to places such as church and youth camps, but the treat is always near. This experiment is similar to the experiments of Solomon Ash on social pressure. In their experiments they approached the pressures of an opposing majority influencing the views of an individual. The acceptance outcome of the independent teen was the same for the independent views of Ash's experiments. When the support of the individuals views are reinforced by another agreeing source, the acceptance of the majority is less likely to be accepted.

Jessica,
I wasn't able to figure out what was unethical about that experiment.

There have been many reports of North Korean human experimentation. These reports show human rights abuses similar to those of Nazi and Japanese human experimentation in World War II. These allegations of human rights abuses are denied by the North Korean government, who claim that all prisoners in North Korea are humanely treated.

One former North Korean woman prisoner tells how 50 healthy women prisoners were selected and given poisoned cabbage leaves, which all the women had to eat despite cries of distress from those who had already eaten. All 50 were dead after 20 minutes of vomiting blood and anal bleeding. Refusing to eat would have meant reprisals against them and their families.

Kwon Hyok, a former prison Head of Security at Camp 22, described laboratories equipped respectively for poison gas, suffocation gas and blood experiments, in which 3 or 4 people, normally a family, are the experimental subjects. After undergoing medical checks, the chambers are sealed and poison is injected through a tube, while “scientists” observe from above through glass. Kwon Hyok claims to have watched one family of 2 parents, a son and a daughter die from suffocating gas, with the parents trying to save the children using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for as long as they had the strength.

Source:www.listverse.com