Applying Ethical Considerations to Key Studies Which Use Animals (DP IB Psychology)

Applying the ‘Replace’ ethical guideline to key studies

• In Weaver et al. (2004) the rats could have been replaced by using the results of existing studies into human attachment e.g. Rutter’s (1998) longitudinal research into the experience of Romanian orphans who suffered deprivation due to their time spent in the aversive environment of Romanian orphanages

• Similar to the above point, the results of Lassi & Tucci (2017) could have been achieved by looking for epigenetic changes in humans who have experienced fostering: both biological and social measures could be applied e.g. DNA analysis and interviews rather than using mice in lab conditions

• Rosenzweig et al. (1972) placed some rats in an impoverished environment which was seen to affect their brain plasticity but this would be unnecessary today with the use of MRI technology using human participants such as in Luby et al. (2013) which looked at the effects of poverty on the brain

Applying the ‘Reduce’ ethical guideline to key studies

• Martin et al. (2005) used 30 red-backed salamanders in their research on pheromones but it could be argued that they could have reduced this number, particularly as a repeated measures design was used thus maximising the results per salamander

• The number of rats used in Weaver et al. (2004) and in Fadda et al. (1996) is not mentioned in the original journal articles which begs the question as to how many were used and why the researchers did not include this in the abstract (does this imply that the sample size is unimportant as non-humans were used?)

• Lassi & Tucci (2017) used 8 litters of mouse pups with each litter containing 6-10 pups which in total comes to at least 48 mouse pups; this could potentially have been reduced so that fewer mice experienced the artificial environment of the lab and separation from their mother

Overcrowding lab animals can cause distress and does not adhere to the ‘Reduce’ ethical guideline

Applying the ‘Refine’ ethical guideline to key studies

• Rosenzweig et al. (1972) destroyed the rats in their study in order to perform post-mortem brain analysis on each rat brain which today would be unnecessary due to the development of brain-imaging technologies such as MRI

• Testing territoriality in red-backed salamanders in the study by Martin et al. (2005) could possibly have been conducted in the wild as this would be a true test of the animal defending its territory from intruders: the researchers could have looked at a way of introducing the pheromones to the salamanders’ natural environment

• Fadda et al. (1996) used a specially implanted probe to measure acetylcholine in the rats’ brains but if they had used human participants in a virtual T-maze task they could have used a non-invasive method such as fMRI imaging to highlight the areas of the brain that were active during the task and map these areas to the production of acetylcholine