Ethics of Social Psychology Experiments
Student Worksheet
If you have not already carefully read the instructions for this assignment along with the descriptions of the ten social psychology experiments to consider, please go back and do so now.
Now choose three (3) experiments for which you will answer the questions below. You are free to do outside research on any of them as you please. Please indicate your three choices here:
1.
2.
3.
For each of the three experiments you chose, please insert your answers directly below the question. Although there is no minimum word count for each response, it is unlikely that you would be able to fully answer each question with less than 3-4 complete sentences.
1. What was the purpose of this experiment? What were the authors’ hypotheses (that is, what were they predicting would happen)?
Response for Experiment One:
Response for Experiment Two:
Response for Experiment Three:
2. Was deception used in this experiment? If so, what was the reason for using deception of subjects?
Response for Experiment One:
Response for Experiment Two:
Response for Experiment Three:
3. What methodology was used in the study (e.g., were subjects run through an experimental procedure or did the experimenters simply observe people in a naturalistic setting)? Why do you think this type of methodology was chosen?
Response for Experiment One:
Response for Experiment Two:
Response for Experiment Three:
4. What were the results of the study? Were the experimenters’ predictions correct? If not, why did the experimenters feel that things turned out differently than expected?
Response for Experiment One:
Response for Experiment Two:
Response for Experiment Three:
5. Regarding the ethics of this study (keeping in mind that ethics and morals are not necessary interchangeable), do you feel the experiment was ethical? Why or why not? If you would not consider it ethical by today’s standards, do you think it was ethical at the time when the experiment was conducted?
Response for Experiment One:
Response for Experiment Two: