Ethics in Psychological Experiments

While discussing in the Philosophy class the different ethical stances that exist, I started relating "Absolutism vs Relativism/Nihilism" with psychology, and recognized that even though psychologists today show a more absolutist stance while conducting experiments, it hasn't been like that all the time. In fact, the ethical parameters that exist nowadays have only existed for less that half of the time that Psychology, as an independent field, has been born.

I once read that of the most unethical experiments in history, the ones in the psychology field occupy the largest amount of numbers. This is probably because it's very difficult to draw the line between what is right and what is wrong, especially when your expected results dominate your moral judgments, and also because it can sometimes be very easy to mess with someone else's psyche. After all, each individual has a different resiliency, making it very difficult when judging how the people involved are going to react.

Of all the unethical experiments I've read about, the "Little Albert" one is the one I remember the most. The father of behaviorism, James Watson, had a preference for using baby orphans on his experiments. On one particular case, he wanted to discover whether fear was something that could be conditioned or something that was simply innate. Thus, he conditioned Albert to fear a white rat by making horrible sounds each time the rat was presented to him. By the end of the experiment, Albert not only feared the white rat, but anything white and/or fluffy (the fear had been generalized). The worst part of this experiment is that Watson didn't get to desensitize Albert of his fear.

After many years, the APA (American Psychological Association) decided that it would be for the best if they gave psychologists a list of ethical parameters to follow, which prohibited them from conducting any experiment which would have such a profound psychological effect on its subjects. In many cases it's still possible to "mislead" subjects by not telling them "exactly" what they are doing, but the consensus states that at least they must be informed of the most important aspects of their participation.

The psychological experimental process has come a long way since its first days, now having its moral stance as being somewhat absolutist (at least people recognize there are some universal "must-not-do's"). However, there are still those who in the name of science adopt a more relativist position, they understand there are certain wrongs, but they also feel it depends on the situation, because when conducting experiments they feel it's justified to cross a line which they wouldn't cross at any other circumstance.