Research and Program Evaluation Methods in Applied Psychology

1. Research and Program Evaluation Methods in Applied Psychology Spring 2018 Alla Chavarga Ethics and Research

2. Objectives • What is Ethics? • Potential Ethics Problem in Organizations • Making Ethical Decisions • The Ethical Code of the American Psychological Association • The Institutional Review Board • Some ethical dilemmas

3. What is Ethics? • Study and application of ethical standards • A question of good, right, duty, obligations, and morality • Does an action affect the well-being of others? • Basic ethical principles involve: • The rules of conduct recognized in a particular profession • Legal or professional guidelines that must be followed • Determined by society, an ethics board, external social system (not personal/individual decision)

4. Potential Ethics Issues in Organizations • Ethics of organizational decision making (e.g. HR/OB issues) • Ethics of working in organizations (e.g. HR/OB issues) • Ethics of conducting research in organizations • Selecting research problem • Conducting study • Conducting data analyses (HARKing) • Interpreting results • Roles change perspectives: • As an organizational member (i.e. HR employee) • As an outsider (i.e. consultant hired to do research) • Ethics of writing reports • Plagiarism • HARKing

5. Example of Ethical Issues in OB • Because Bill Brown, Ph.D., was a friend and a colleague with similar interests, Tom Toole, Ph.D., shared some highly sensitive information about the staff problems in a company for which he was performing human factor assessments. Much later, Toole had reason to believe that Brown has leaked that information to the company’s competitor. Adapted from: Koocher, G.P. & Keith-Spiegel, P. (1998). Ethics in Psychology. Professional Standards and Cases (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

6. Example of Ethical Issues in HR • An employee expressed considerable anger toward a boss, who had recently threatened to fire him. During a psychological assessment for promotion, the employee told the industrial/organizational psychologist that the boss was “an exploiter of the working class and deserved to be exterminated.” The employee detailed a plan to perform the execution himself. The psychologist tried to convince the employee otherwise when the employee abruptly bolted from the room and disappeared down the hall. Adapted from: Koocher, G.P. & Keith-Spiegel, P. (1998). Ethics in Psychology. Professional Standards and Cases (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

7. Example of Ethical Issues in HR • During a psychological assessment for a promotion, an employee told the industrial/organizational psychologist that he was having an affair with his current employer. The i/o psychologist is a friend and colleague of this employer. • Sexual relationships are often prohibited in certain organizational settings, but must be practical!

8. Ethical dilemmas • Is it appropriate for an I-O psychologist who is acting in a consulting capacity to own stock or invest in a company (or their competitor) with whom he/she is consulting? • Excessive expat stress can be a source of distraction and has been linked to safety incidents, days absent, and significantly higher rate of early disengagement from the assignment. Expatriate pay and benefits and early turnover/ replacement are hugely costly for the employer

9. Ethics in research

10. Checklist for Ethical Research Projects • How will you explain to your participants the purpose of the study and methods used in ways that are accurate and understandable? • Why should employees participate in your study? • Will this research put people at risk? In what way? (psychological, legal, political, ostracizing by others, employment risk?) • Can confidentiality or anonymity be fully honored? • What kind of informed consent is necessary for mutual protection? From: Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage. (p. 408)

11. Checklist for Ethical Research Projects • Who will have access to the data? (Management, Union, Others) For what purposes? Will they see names or just summarized results? • How will you and your participants likely be affected by conducting this research (e.g. a friend of yours is in a department researched) • Who will be the researcher’s confidant and counselor on matters of ethics during a study? • How hard will you push for data? From: Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage. (p. 408)

12. Ethical Code • Code of conduct • Accepted rules and regulations • Psychologists follow APA’s code, but most fields of science have a similar code • 5 General Principles

13. Ethics are tough! • Applying ethics is sometimes not a simple task • Personal (moral) and organizational (ethical) codes may conflict • If an action is not explicitly regulated by a code, it does not mean it is ethical • If you don’t know about an ethical regulation, you will still be found guilty of violating it.

14. Philosophical Background

15. Utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill) • Behavior is ethical if • positive outcomes > negative outcomes • Ends justify the means • For psychologists and social science researchers: • Results should benefit others (more than the study process will harm subjects) • Best possible methods are being used for data collection

16. Utilitarianism • Advantages • Rationale for temporary discomfort in research • Common sense view on morality of research • Disadvantages • What is the cost of discomfort to participants? • What are true benefits? • Who decides whether there are “true” benefits?

17. Principle of Rights (Kant) • Enforcement and creation of well-intentioned laws (ethicalness of intent) • Never treat humanity as a means, but also as an end • All people are equal • We must respect dignity of others • Don’t treat them in a way that serves self-interest • Individuals give up certain freedoms to attain the protection enjoyed by society at large • Basis for APA ethics – ensuring basic rights

18. Principle of Rights • Advantages • Research procedures must respect dignity of participants • All people are to be treated as equal • Disadvantages • Conflicting rights of individuals (e.g. confidentiality towards child abuser) • Perhaps too absolutist

19. APA Ethics

20. APA Ethics • Need for a code by late 1940s: • Following WWII, U.S. nuclear experiments, Tuskegee Institute experiments, others… • Nuremberg Code (1949), Declaration of Helsinki (1964) • APA’s ethical standards (1970s) • Eventually linked with creation of IRBs through the National Research Act (1974) • Current revision • http://www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html • http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/principles.pdf

21. Developing the APA Code of Ethics • First code  1953 • Hobbs committee • Critical incidents procedure • Most recent revision (2002) • 2002 revision includes 10 general categories of ethical issues • 5 general principles + 89 specific standards

22. The APA Code of Ethics (cont’d) Five general principles of the APA code: • Beneficence and non-malfeasance • Constantly weigh costs & benefits; produce greatest good • Fidelity and responsibility • Constantly aware of responsibility to society • Integrity • Scrupulously honest • Justice • Fair treatment • Respect for people’s rights and dignity • Safeguard welfare, protect rights

23. Seeking IRB Approval • Complexity of process depends on complexity and risks of the study • ALL research with humans (and animals) must: • use valid methods • follow legal/ethical standards • be IRB (or IACUC) approved • IRB Types of Review • Full • Expedited • Exempt

24. Seeking IRB Approval • Project must meet responsibility and qualification criteria • Responsible for welfare/dignity of participants • Qualified to do the research (students with supervision OK)

25. Seeking IRB Approval • With humans, voluntary implied consent required • “Informed Consent” • Consent forms must: • Be descriptive and clear • Explain confidentiality/anonymity procedures • Provide participants with stated rights and protections inherent in the study • What are potential negative outcomes? • The right to results • Sometimes acceptable to test without consent • Sometimes necessary to test without consent

26. Rights of test-takers • Be treated with respect, regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics. • Tested with measures that meet professional standards • Explanation prior to testing about the purpose(s) for testing, the kind(s) of tests to be used. • Freedom to decline, and withdraw • Test administered and your test results interpreted by trained individuals

27. Special Issues • Young participants • If under 18*, or disabled the guardian must give consent • Vulnerable Populations • Protect against coercion • Video/audio recording • Need consent and confidentiality promises • Deception • By omission or commission requires debriefing + special conditions

28. Debriefing • Telling participants about the study • Helps them understand the importance of their involvement in research • Required if deception is used • Dehoaxing, desensitizing • Often left out, but very important

29. Ethical Dilemmas in Organizational Research • For in-class discussions: • Requiring employee participation • Eavesdropping for unobtrusive observation in organizations • Asking questions about sexual behaviors/relationships

30. Plagiarism and Cheating CUNY Academic Integrity Policy CUNY Plagiarism Brochure

31. Ethics in Presenting Work as Your Own

32. Plagiarism • Copying another person’s actual words without the use of quotation marks and footnotes attributing the words to their source. • Presenting another person’s ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledging the source. • Failing to acknowledge collaborators on homework and laboratory assignments. • Internet plagiarism includes submitting downloaded term papers or parts of term papers, paraphrasing or copying information from the internet without citing the source, and “cutting & pasting” from various sources without proper attribution • Self Plagiarism; yes, it’s real.

33. Obtaining Unfair Advantage • Stealing, reproducing, circulating or otherwise gaining advance access to examination materials. • Depriving other students of access to library materials by stealing, destroying, defacing, or concealing them. • Retaining, using or circulating examination materials which clearly indicate that they should be returned at the end of the exam.

34. Falsification of Records and Official Documents • Forging signatures of authorization • Falsifying information on an official academic record • Falsifying information on an official document such as a grade report, letter of permission, drop/add form, ID card or other college document.

35. What happened? • Ethical unraveling of Enron, Pfizer, Arthur Anderson • Model of unethical choices (Kish-Gephart, Harrison, & Trevino, 2010) • Antecedents • Bad apples: characteristics of people who make poor ethical choices • Bad cases: characteristics of the situation surrounding the ethical choice • Bad barrels: organizational climates or cultures that seem defined by poor ethical choices • Assessment, training, culture change • Moralized leadership: followers’ perception of the leaders behavior as morally right