IRB's emerged as mandated bodies governing the intersection of research & humans in the wake of the 1974 NRA and subsequent Belmont Report. That report explicit

IRB's emerged as mandated bodies governing the intersection of research & humans in the wake of the 1974 NRA and subsequent Belmont Report. That report explicitly states that it is more that just biomedical, but also behavioral research that is covered. "do something to people to see how they act" fits pretty well within the domain of "behavior". If you are doing research with an institution governed by an IRB then you cannot do anything involving a human being without it getting reviewed by the IRB. There are criteria whereby the IRB may exempt the research from a full review, but only the IRB can make that determination. Perhaps the #1 absolute goal of the IRB is to assess potential adverse impacts of the research on any humans involved. It should be clear from the comments here, and if you read through any of the links to twitter threads, that people were adversely impacted by this study either through anxiety, time spent unecessarily, and perhaps money. I might understand (though disagree) with a point of view that said these adverse results were not foreseeable, but review of the study itself under an IRB for its involvement of humans was absolutely required.