COMM 400 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: National Research Act, Institutional Review Board

• School: George Mason University
• Department: Communication
• Course: COMM 400
• Professor: Botan

Document Summary

~ they are conventions particular to a given culture. ~ an act being legal does not make it ethical. Ethics can be defined as moral principles and recognized rules of conduct regarding a particular class of human action. Ethical decisions can rarely be judged as right or wrong, they exist on a continuum ranging from clearly unethical to clearly ethical. Helps to refocus attention on the ethics of studying human beings in communication research. 1970"s psych professor from cal-berkeley studied the effect of oppressive environments on healthy, educated students- simulated prison. ~ after 6 days, 5 of the 30 inmates had completely broken down. Not one of the student volunteers said anything like lay off, i"m just a volunteer for this study and not one person left the study on their own. They were unaware of their right to leave the study at any given time.