Research that uses animals or humans as subjects is key for the advancement of many disciplines. For example, testing newly developed drugs on animals tells us whether the drugs will be safe to test on humans. However, it is the responsibility of the researcher to ensure that animal and human subjects are treated with respect, and to prevent unnecessary suffering.
Read about a controversial case using human subjects. Click on each section to find out more.
Facebook's emotional contagion project
In January 2012 Facebook conducted a massive experiment involving 689,003 of its users to test whether the emotional content users receive into their newsfeed influences their emotional state.
How was it done?
Facebook controlled the frequency of posts with negative or positive content that the research subjects (Facebook users) saw in their Facebook feed. They did this by hiding certain posts from the newsfeed. The subjects were divided in three groups:
- Negativity reduced: some negative posts were hidden
- Positivity reduced: some positive posts were hidden
- Control: randomly selected posts were hidden
The results showed that emotion is contagious since the negativity-reduced group used fewer negative words in their own posts; conversely, the positivity-reduced group used fewer positive words in their own posts.
Controversy arises
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2014 (Kramer et al., 2014). It immediately became the center of media attention, not only because of the findings, but because the research participants (Facebook users) had not been explicitly informed about the research or asked to consent to participate as research subjects for the project. That is, Facebook hid posts from their newsfeeds without them knowing this was happening.
Facebook's response
Facebook responded that they stood by a statement included in the paper: "[The work] was consistent with Facebook's Data Use Policy, to which all users agree prior to creating an account on Facebook, constituting informed consent for this research" (Kramer et al., 2014)
Response from the journal editor
The PNAS editor responded by publishing an Editorial expression of concern stating that although Facebook, as a private company, is not bound by the "Common Rule" (governmental regulations for human subject research), it is still problematic that Facebook does not follow standard practices of informed and voluntary consent when conducting experiments (Verma, 2014).
Response from the research community
Many academic institutions and professional organizations have developed their own guidelines for internet-based research. The Office of Human Research Protections of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services published a list of recommendations for internet-based research (SACHRP, 2013). However, as of 2017, there is still a lack of national or international standards that apply to research conducted by private companies.
The constant development of new technologies opens new ways to conduct research but also poses new challenges to ensure the protection of research subjects.
Many different disciplines work directly or indirectly with animal or human subjects. Even if your discipline does not use animal or human subjects, we all benefit from this type of research, and you might even find yourself participating in a research project as a human subject. Thus, being informed about the ethical treatment of human and animals in research is relevant to everyone.
Rate the statements based on your level of confidence of your knowledge on the topic.
- I know the office at my institution that regulates the use of animals in research.
- I know the office at my institution that regulates the use of human subjects in research.
- I can describe the ethical principles of work with animal subjects.
- I can describe the ethical principles of work with human subjects.
- I am conducting research with animal subjects.
- I am conducting research with human subjects.
- I have received training for work with animal subjects.
- I have received training for work with human subjects.
If you are not entirely confident about the appropriate ethics and regulations guiding use of animals or human subjects in research, you will be able to gain more information about these topics throughout this module.