Question

Should animals be used in psychological and medical research? Why or why not?

Answer 1

• Animals have been commonly used as test subjects in different areas of psychological research. For example, in the Biological field, animals are commonly used to develop drugs to help treat mental disorders. Even though using animals as test subjects has its advantages in Psychology, there are many problems with doing this.
• For instance, some people believe that it is unethical to use animals in research, due to reasons such as animal cruelty and the fact that it is impossible for an animal to consent to taking part in research like a human would do.
• The extent to which an animal is similar to a human is also debatable. For example, an animal may react in a completely different way to a newly developed drug than a human, therefore when it’s tested on a human volunteer there could be disastrous consequences.
• In my opinion, using animals in psychological research is acceptable. Some people may argue that it is cruel to use a defenceless animal and that only humans who can consent to studies should be used in psychological research.
• However, I believe that when the ends justify the means in research it is necessary to use animals as test subjects. There have been studies where ethical issues have been raised such as Skinner’s ‘Rat in a box’ study.
• He was investigating the stimulus-response reaction when he introduced a starving rat to a box, where he must press a lever to receive food. In this study, even though the rat suffered some discomfort, this was justified, as Skinner discovered operant conditioning and successfully applied it to human behaviour.
• Even though no animal is 100% similar to a human, certain aspects of many different animals can be likened to a human. For example, rats are creatures which can be accessed quite easily in large numbers, therefore are commonly used in research.
• They are surprisingly quite similar to humans; they have similar basic physiology,genetic similarities range from 70%-90%, and they are highly intelligent creatures. Therefore they are very useful to use as test subjects.
• In rarer studies, animals which have an even higher genetic similarity to humans are used, such as apes. These animals perform very similarly to humans in certain situations and are therefore very useful in psychological research; however they are more difficult to access, and it is also very cruel to remove them from their natural habitat.
• Overall, I believe that animals are a very useful way of testing theories in psychological research, as they can tell psychologists a lot about how the human mind works, and why it works the way it does.
• Even though there are certain ethical issues that arise from doing this, if it is necessary in the research I think that using animals as test subjects is acceptable. It's not fair to lab animals, but until we have a better way to safely test medicines on humans, we need to use animals in medical research.