Question

According to the APA Ethics Code, was the psychologists’ involvement in this study ethical or unethical? Apply the General Principles and Ethics Codes Standards to the following dilemma:

Case Study: In 2014, investigators from several academic research institutions collaborated with Facebook to test whether reducing the number of positive or negative messages people saw made them less likely to post positive or negative content themselves (Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014). The experiment was carried out by manipulating the algorithm by which Facebook sweeps posts into members’ news feeds. Participants were not informed they were a part of this research. Investigators involved in the study defended the absence of informed consent for a study designed to influence emotions, arguing that the manipulation was consistent with Facebook’s Data Use Policy, to which all users must agree at the time they join Facebook (Goel, 2014). However, Facebook policy only mentions “research” in general terms (e.g., “We may use the information we receive about you…for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement” (Waldman, 2014). The investigators also argued that they were using “archival” data collected by a business entity, despite the fact that they were involved in the initial study design. According to the APA Ethics Code, was the psychologists’ involvement in this study ethical or unethical? Support your decision with relevant General Principles and Ethic Code Standards.

Answer 1

The APA code of ethics and the standards of general principles are based on core values that psychologists should always act in congruence with. These principles include: beneficence and non-maleficence, fidelity and responsibility, integrity, justice, and respect for people's rights and dignity. Participation in a psychological research is guided by the ethic of informed consent according to which the researchers must take only those participants for study who are willing to take part in the research and are made fully aware of the purpose and procedures involved in the study. The given study by Kramer et al (2014) thus appears to violate this code as the Facebook users were engage directly in the research without their awareness.

Moroever, the researchers seems to have defied the code for respect and confidentiality of the participants’s personal information and had directly procured the information about the participants’ social media profile throughout third party ( Facebook organisation). Their justification for using secondary or ‘archival data’ is an instance of the unethical practice of giving misleading information about the procedure as the researchers were directly involved in the planning of the initial study design.

Thus, the study is unethical as it violates several ethical standards as listed in the APA Code of Ethics.