A REVOLUTIONARY new code of conduct for researchers in Canada who use
human subjects could spell the end of psychological research in the
country.
The code is still being finalised by a panel appointed by Canada鈥檚 three main
government-funded research councils, but an early draft has already provoked
outrage. It would require researchers to debrief their subjects after each
study. If participants did not like what they heard, they could then demand that
data relating to them be removed from any published analysis.
The guidelines also propose that researchers who study subjects belonging to
specific groups in society must first obtain the consent of leaders of that
group. As a result, leaders of cults, gangs, or extremist groups could block
many studies by social scientists, claims Peter Suedfeld, a psychologist at
University of British Columbia and director of Canada鈥檚 Society for Academic
Freedom and Scholarship, in one of hundreds of letters of protest. 鈥淚f I want to
do research on the residents of Vancouver, must I get permission from the mayor?
If on Canadians, from the prime minister?鈥�
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Obtaining such consent would force psychologists to reveal the hypotheses
they wish to test. This is a major problem, as most psychological studies
require some deception on the experimenter鈥檚 part. 鈥淥ne hardly ever reveals the
exact hypothesis to subjects, in the quite reasonable belief that they will be
influenced by it,鈥� says Doreen Kimura of the University of Western Ontario. 鈥淵ou
wouldn鈥檛 be able to do any psychology if you followed this to the letter.鈥�
The code of conduct is intended to provide ethical guidelines, rather than
statutory rules, but Suedfeld and other critics fear that ethics committees
would apply them rigidly to avoid trouble and the threat of legal action.
Jean Joly, an epidemiologist at Laval University in Quebec and chairman of
the committee drawing up the code of conduct, told 快猫短视频 that
it is being revised in response to comments on the draft. He admits that the
regulations requiring consent from group leaders are probably unworkable in
their present form.
But Joly seems less inclined to back down over the proposal giving subjects
the right to remove data at the end of a study. 鈥淲e鈥檙e still struggling to
strike a balance between the need for informed consent and the issue of
deception,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here is a need for research, but there is also a need to
protect people鈥檚 dignity.鈥�
This proposal alone could wreck many psychological studies, says Kimura, who
studies cognitive differences between men and women. 鈥淪uppose we had a number of
radical feminists in the study,鈥� she says. 鈥淚f they withdrew after debriefing, I
would have no way of knowing whether the remaining sample was representative.鈥�