IB diploma Psychology core companion: Biological Approach Page 73
PART 4C: ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN ANIMAL RESEARCH
How ethical is animal research?
We finished the last section by stating that animal research could be dangerous for humans. We start this
one by looking at the dangers of animal research to the animals themselves. Has the time come to
abandon animal research as a relic of an earlier age and replace it completely with human research and
computer modelling?
Ethical Guidelines for Animal
Research
Clearly guidelines for human research, such as
the giving of informed consent and right to
withdraw, cannot be applied to animals. There
are several sets of ethical guidelines especially
for psychological non‐human animal research.
The American Psychological Association’s
Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and
Use of Animals can be found at
https://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/guidelines.aspx, and the corresponding guidelines from the
British Psychological Society are at https://tinyurl.com/mv4mjw8. The Australian government’s animal
research ethics website is here https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health‐ethics/animal‐research‐ethics.
These guidelines all include the following provisions:
Research should be undertaken with a clear scientific purpose.
The ‘smallest number of animals sufficient to accomplish the research goals’ should be used in any
study.
The costs and benefits of any study must be carefully evaluated.
The welfare of the animal must be taken into account and researchers must ‘seek to minimise any
pain, suffering or distress that might arise’ from any experiment.
Researchers should use alternatives to animal research whenever possible, including data collected by
other researchers, lower species (leeches, cell cultures, etc.) or, increasingly, computer simulations.
What emerges from the guidelines are the ‘3 Rs’ of animal research. These are to:
Replace animals with other alternatives.
Reduce the number of individual animals used.
Refine procedures to minimise suffering.
These principles for animal research were developed over 50 years ago providing a framework for
performing more humane research. Since then they have been embedded in national and international
legislation and regulations on the use of animals in scientific procedures, as well as in the policies of
organisations that fund or conduct animal research.
Replacement: This involves developing alternatives to the use of animals, such as ingenious computer
simulations, like this one for ‘Sniffy the Virtual Rat’
http://www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/special_features/sniffy.html, which would be of particular use
in undergraduate research programmes, where live animals are often used for educational purposes. Use
of human volunteers’ tissues and cells is controversial, but also a viable alternative. Replacement of
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Page 74 IB diploma Psychology core companion: Biological Approach
mammals by lesser species, such as single‐cell amoebae and nematode worms can prevent suffering of
more developed animals.
Reduction: Animal experiments need to be appropriately designed to gain results using the minimum
number of animals necessary. Maximising the data gained (without suffering) from any one animal, by
micro‐sampling (taking repeat but tiny samples) can significantly reduce the number of animals needed.
Refinement: Ensuring the animals are provided with adequate housing that allows the expression of
species‐specific behaviours, using appropriate anaesthetics and painkillers, and training animals to
cooperate with procedures to minimise any distress are all examples of refinements that can minimise any
suffering.
Refinement is particularly important not only for the animals’ welfare, but for the results of studies, as
evidence suggests that pain and suffering can alter an animal’s behaviour, physiology and immunology.
These changes can lead to a lack of reliability in experimental results.
The UK National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research has a
website dedicated to examples of research using these principles, at https://nc3rs.org.uk/our‐impacts.
Cost‐Benefit Analysis
It is a cost‐benefit analysis as to whether animals should be used at all, even within the guidelines and
under these principles to minimise the cost to the animals. The benefits and risks (costs) have to be
weighed up for each piece of research. Sometimes the benefits for treatment of humans can only be
hoped for, but not known until human clinical trials take place after the animal studies have suggested
certain procedures or treatments would be beneficial to humans. As Archibald and Coleman (2012) stated
in 92% of these cases treatments that worked with animals failed clinical trials.
However, the benefits of animal research should not only be looked at in relation to medical treatment; in
psychology we are looking at the benefit for understanding human behaviour. In this respect, many areas
have benefitted from earlier animal research. Domjan and Purdy (1995) give a comprehensive list of areas
of psychology that have benefitted considerably from animal research, including developmental
psychology, the biological bases of behaviour, sensation and perception, motivation and emotion,
memory, abnormal psychology (including psychoactive drugs and drug abuse), health, stress and coping.
Bearing this in mind, it seems that ethical considerations should also consider whether animals could be
used in natural circumstances as well as, or maybe instead of, in experiments. Observations of primates in
their natural habitats, and of the effects of changing environment and family disruption on the treatment
of young animals may yield richer data. Xu et al. (2015) argued that using lab rats and mice in experiments
to investigate depression that occurs naturally in a social context is not realistic. Instead, they used
macaque monkeys in order to describe and model a naturally‐occurring depressive state amongst
monkeys raised in socially‐stable groups at Zhongke Feeding Centre in Suzhou, China, where they are
provided with environmental conditions and surroundings approximating those found in the wild.
POSSIBLE EXAM QUESTIONS
Essay Questions
Discuss the value of animal models in psychological research into human behaviour.
‘Discuss’ means that you need to provide a considered and balanced review of the value of animal models
with a range of arguments. You should support your opinions with evidence.
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IB diploma Psychology core companion: Biological Approach Page 75
To what extent is animal research ethical?
‘To what extent’ requires that you consider the merits or otherwise of the arguments regarding whether or
not animal research is ethical. Opinions and conclusions should be supported with appropriate evidence
and sound argument.
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