Ethical Issues Confronting One of the Strangest Studies in Psychology

Some years ago a psychological study was conducted in a men's bathroom in which men were observed as they urinated.  As you can imagine, many people - scientists and non-scientists alike - were infuriated when they learned that the men were not asked for their permission and were not even told that they had just been observed.  Many people also wondered what benefit to our understanding of human nature could possibly have been obtained from such a study.   Listen to this episode of The Psych Files podcast to find out how the researchers defended their actions (see if you change your mind as a result) and listen to the co-founder of the Shy Bladder institute to see how important this study ultimately proved to be for millions of people.

The Psych Files podcast

Click here to listen to this episode on One of the Strangest Studies in Psychology.

Comments

[BERNARD SAMPANA DIENORNG]

main ethical issues confronting psychology reseachers?

[Michael Britt]

Bernard,

I'm not sure exactly what your comment is asking, but I'll take this guess: the main issues these researchers confronted was whether or not to give the participants an informed consent (which they didn't) and whether to give them a debriefing (which they also did not do). The episode goes into some of the reasons why they decided against doing these two standard procedures.

Michael

[weiszdoc]

I just listened to this episode. I like your approach to looking into a historical study and issues related to it. You did that with one or more other studies in previous podcast episodes. The prison study comes to mind.

I feel like the pieces that were missing from my graduate education are being filled in by some of your podcasts. Thanks, Michael. You're a good teacher who can convey it nicely onto a podcast format. That's not easy to do.