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Any time you're studying how you might influence human behaviour, especially if they may be unaware that you are seeking to do so, you need to run it by an ethi

by shakna 7y ago

Any time you're studying how you might influence human behaviour, especially if they may be unaware that you are seeking to do so, you need to run it by an ethics board. This is something psychology has had issues with in the past, and so it's a sensitive area. Several nations also have laws governing these kinds of experiments as a result. The supermarket should be assessing whether their experiment is ethical. Increasing sales of fruit and veg is unlikely to raise any red flags, but if you drive people towards unhealthy options, then you may need to assess whether or not your study has the potential for detrimental long term effects.

fwn 7y ago
Ah, I see. It's not an ethical, but a legal or procedural concern. That's fair enough. I didn't think about that.
- cf141q5325 7y ago
  No its an ethical concern. To the degree, that some countries have legal frameworks to make sure that unethical studies dont take place. Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. An ethics board has to, among other things, evaluate if your study will induce any negative effects in the participants. While negative effects can be accepted, its extremely unlikely for unknowing testsubjects which didnt give meaningful consent.
  - fwn 7y ago
    I know talking ethics beyond buzzwords is a karma killer on HN, but I'm unteachable. I promise: no evil intentions. > [...] Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. [...] As far as I understood it you are just restating what our parent already said with: > [...] How is this study ethically responsible? [...] They’re studying the long-term perceptual impact of advertising on test subjects who did not authorize being participants in this experiment. [...] It's not sufficient to state that there's an ethical argument to make the argument an ethical argument. This is important, because it's the only way to productively talk about ethical concerns at all - irrespective of how one feels regarding this particular issue. An argument based on ethics is usually founded in some set of value propositions. Often a case gets structured/applied along those propositions in the argument. > [...] Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. [...] That does appear to be the ethical standard case from clinical research. You've test subjects with a variation of intentions, knowledge and consent as well as (for the most part) clearly isolatable harm. One would first find the obvious ethical fault in intentionally inducing the risk of harming someone and subsequently start healing/weighting through something like consent, individual and humanitarian utility, etc. (That's roughly what you described as part of an ethics board workflow.) Now back to this case: How do we quantify harm induced by a change regarding LinkedIn ad-density? It's not clear to me that there is any risk for induced harm even if all (100%) posts visible on LinkedIn were ads. Next question would be consent, but since I wanted to start with the strongest argument first, I'll stick with the harm. This is why I would like to know how the ethical argument against this study works.
    - cf141q5325 7y ago
      I think we might be talking past each other. The procedural concern you mentioned is an ethical concern, a departure from the procedure is the unethical part. Just having an ethical consideration doesnt preempt the conclusion of that consideration. I am talking ethical consideration not ethical statement. The consideration part might be summarized like you did here > How do we quantify harm induced by a change regarding LinkedIn ad-density? For the consideration what negative effects there are, there are ethic boards, as its generally considered unethical to make that consideration alone as a stakeholder. Forgoing the conclusion of that consideration doesnt mean we didnt need an ethics board in the first place. There are two distinct questions here, what are the ethical concerns for the study and should there be an ethics board involved in finding an answer to the first question. Since we are talking about long term impact on peoples behavior, i think you can make a case that not considering the ethical aspects of that impact on unknowing test subjects is generally unethical?
      - fwn 7y ago
        We might be talking past each other, but that doesn't mean we don't disagree, because I don't agree with this: > For the consideration what negative effects there are, there are ethic boards, as its generally considered unethical to make that consideration alone as a stakeholder. A well trained ethics board might be a nice institutional tool to provide a documented ethical evaluation one can start with, but it of course does not in any way relieve anyone involved from their moral agency or the need to assess their actions "alone". I'm also in strong opposition to the idea that it's unethical to make ethical considerations alone, as a stakeholder or not. Generally: delegating ethical responsibility of ones own action to a hierarchy is IMO very unethical, no matter how the industry handles it. > Forgoing the conclusion of that consideration doesnt mean we didnt need an ethics board in the first place. In my earlier comments I wasn't writing (or thinking) about whether we(?) need ethics boards or not and I do think that this is a different topic, but: We don't strictly need ethics boards, right? It's not something like human agency. They're a nice attempt to increase checks and balances in an institutionalized manner, not some kind of moral requirement. > There are two distinct questions here, what are the ethical concerns for the study and should there be an ethics board involved in finding an answer to the first question. There I agree, except that the ethics board can not answer the first question for the researchers. But that aside: Yes, the demand of seeking counsel can be morally justified. > Since we are talking about long term impact on peoples behavior, i think you can make a case that not considering the ethical aspects of that impact on unknowing test subjects is generally unethical? I think this is the essence of the question. I don't know of any ethical difference between long and short term impact, so I'd cut that out. I don't think that the test subjects knowledge would change anything in that regard, but tell me, if I'm wrong here. All shortened it would leave us with: You should ethically consider your impact on test subjects. Which I would agree on. Let's hope they've considered it in an appropriate manner. I just thought that there is some material concern - like an actual moral wrongdoing - they've done, instead of just a concern that they might not have been concerned.
yorwba 7y ago
> Any time you're studying how you might influence human behaviour, especially if they may be unaware that you are seeking to do so, you need to run it by an ethics board. They were going to influence human behavior anyway, the only difference to business as usual is that they were studying the effects rather than making changes blindly. Do you think that it's the studying that requires review by an ethics board? If you require review for studies but not business decisions, you'll end up with people not evaluating the consequences to avoid having to get approval. If you require it for anything that influences behavior, you don't get that perverse incentive, but you'll have a hard time finding a reasonable threshold beyond which "influencing behavior" needs to be reviewed.
scarejunba 7y ago
No, you don't have to run it by an ethics board. Who taught you this? If what you were saying were true then just testing a joke at one stand-up event and testing a slight variation at a different one would require an ethics board. That's patently absurd.

by shakna 7y ago

fwn 7y ago

Ah, I see. It's not an ethical, but a legal or procedural concern. That's fair enough. I didn't think about that.

cf141q5325 7y ago
No its an ethical concern. To the degree, that some countries have legal frameworks to make sure that unethical studies dont take place. Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. An ethics board has to, among other things, evaluate if your study will induce any negative effects in the participants. While negative effects can be accepted, its extremely unlikely for unknowing testsubjects which didnt give meaningful consent.
- fwn 7y ago
  I know talking ethics beyond buzzwords is a karma killer on HN, but I'm unteachable. I promise: no evil intentions. > [...] Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. [...] As far as I understood it you are just restating what our parent already said with: > [...] How is this study ethically responsible? [...] They’re studying the long-term perceptual impact of advertising on test subjects who did not authorize being participants in this experiment. [...] It's not sufficient to state that there's an ethical argument to make the argument an ethical argument. This is important, because it's the only way to productively talk about ethical concerns at all - irrespective of how one feels regarding this particular issue. An argument based on ethics is usually founded in some set of value propositions. Often a case gets structured/applied along those propositions in the argument. > [...] Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. [...] That does appear to be the ethical standard case from clinical research. You've test subjects with a variation of intentions, knowledge and consent as well as (for the most part) clearly isolatable harm. One would first find the obvious ethical fault in intentionally inducing the risk of harming someone and subsequently start healing/weighting through something like consent, individual and humanitarian utility, etc. (That's roughly what you described as part of an ethics board workflow.) Now back to this case: How do we quantify harm induced by a change regarding LinkedIn ad-density? It's not clear to me that there is any risk for induced harm even if all (100%) posts visible on LinkedIn were ads. Next question would be consent, but since I wanted to start with the strongest argument first, I'll stick with the harm. This is why I would like to know how the ethical argument against this study works.
  - cf141q5325 7y ago
    I think we might be talking past each other. The procedural concern you mentioned is an ethical concern, a departure from the procedure is the unethical part. Just having an ethical consideration doesnt preempt the conclusion of that consideration. I am talking ethical consideration not ethical statement. The consideration part might be summarized like you did here > How do we quantify harm induced by a change regarding LinkedIn ad-density? For the consideration what negative effects there are, there are ethic boards, as its generally considered unethical to make that consideration alone as a stakeholder. Forgoing the conclusion of that consideration doesnt mean we didnt need an ethics board in the first place. There are two distinct questions here, what are the ethical concerns for the study and should there be an ethics board involved in finding an answer to the first question. Since we are talking about long term impact on peoples behavior, i think you can make a case that not considering the ethical aspects of that impact on unknowing test subjects is generally unethical?
    - fwn 7y ago
      We might be talking past each other, but that doesn't mean we don't disagree, because I don't agree with this: > For the consideration what negative effects there are, there are ethic boards, as its generally considered unethical to make that consideration alone as a stakeholder. A well trained ethics board might be a nice institutional tool to provide a documented ethical evaluation one can start with, but it of course does not in any way relieve anyone involved from their moral agency or the need to assess their actions "alone". I'm also in strong opposition to the idea that it's unethical to make ethical considerations alone, as a stakeholder or not. Generally: delegating ethical responsibility of ones own action to a hierarchy is IMO very unethical, no matter how the industry handles it. > Forgoing the conclusion of that consideration doesnt mean we didnt need an ethics board in the first place. In my earlier comments I wasn't writing (or thinking) about whether we(?) need ethics boards or not and I do think that this is a different topic, but: We don't strictly need ethics boards, right? It's not something like human agency. They're a nice attempt to increase checks and balances in an institutionalized manner, not some kind of moral requirement. > There are two distinct questions here, what are the ethical concerns for the study and should there be an ethics board involved in finding an answer to the first question. There I agree, except that the ethics board can not answer the first question for the researchers. But that aside: Yes, the demand of seeking counsel can be morally justified. > Since we are talking about long term impact on peoples behavior, i think you can make a case that not considering the ethical aspects of that impact on unknowing test subjects is generally unethical? I think this is the essence of the question. I don't know of any ethical difference between long and short term impact, so I'd cut that out. I don't think that the test subjects knowledge would change anything in that regard, but tell me, if I'm wrong here. All shortened it would leave us with: You should ethically consider your impact on test subjects. Which I would agree on. Let's hope they've considered it in an appropriate manner. I just thought that there is some material concern - like an actual moral wrongdoing - they've done, instead of just a concern that they might not have been concerned.

yorwba 7y ago

> Any time you're studying how you might influence human behaviour, especially if they may be unaware that you are seeking to do so, you need to run it by an ethics board. They were going to influence human behavior anyway, the only difference to business as usual is that they were studying the effects rather than making changes blindly. Do you think that it's the studying that requires review by an ethics board? If you require review for studies but not business decisions, you'll end up with people not evaluating the consequences to avoid having to get approval. If you require it for anything that influences behavior, you don't get that perverse incentive, but you'll have a hard time finding a reasonable threshold beyond which "influencing behavior" needs to be reviewed.

scarejunba 7y ago

No, you don't have to run it by an ethics board. Who taught you this? If what you were saying were true then just testing a joke at one stand-up event and testing a slight variation at a different one would require an ethics board. That's patently absurd.