Ethical Issues in Lifespan Developmental Research and Practice
This domain tests whether you can apply research-ethics rules to developmental populations - children, fetuses, pregnant women, and adults with cognitive impairment - and whether you can spot when a study design itself creates a moral problem.
The governing framework
- Belmont Report (1979): respect for persons (autonomy plus protection of those with diminished autonomy), beneficence (maximize benefit, minimize harm), justice (fair distribution of research burdens and benefits).
- 45 CFR 46: Subpart B (pregnant women, fetuses, neonates), Subpart C (prisoners), Subpart D (children, §§46.404–407, which sort pediatric research into minimal risk, prospect of direct benefit, and research not otherwise approvable).
- APA Ethics Code: 3.10 informed consent, 8.02 informed consent to research, 8.05 dispensation from consent (only minimal risk, not practicable, no adverse effect on rights and welfare), 8.07 deception, 8.08 debriefing.
Rules specific to minors
- Parental permission is legally required; child assent is the child's developmentally appropriate agreement and does not replace permission. A child's dissent should be honored when the research offers no prospect of direct benefit.
- Active vs passive parental consent: passive consent reduces selection bias but is not accepted by all IRBs and shifts the burden of opting out.
- Confidentiality has limits: suspected abuse or neglect triggers mandated reporting, and participants must be told this before consenting.
- Coercion risks include the teacher-researcher collecting data from their own students, cash incentives that override a poor family's judgment, and re-consent at each longitudinal wave.
Historical anchors worth knowing
Tuskegee (1932–1972, untreated syphilis), Willowbrook (deliberate hepatitis exposure in institutionalized children), Milgram's obedience work, and Harlow's isolation-rearing studies are the cases that shaped modern protections.
Worked example
A team proposes studying attachment in 12-month-olds by adding a 10-minute leave-alone episode to the Strange Situation. Reasoning: separation is already the mildly stressful element of Ainsworth's 21-minute, 8-episode procedure, which is approved as minimal risk because a trained observer monitors and can halt it. Extending the separation for data the child will never benefit from pushes the design past minimal risk; §46.404 no longer covers it, and §46.406 (direct benefit) fails because there is none. The correct fix is to drop the added episode, not to add a debriefing afterward - debriefing does not retroactively justify the risk.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating assent as consent, or assuming a child's refusal can be ignored.
- Believing deception is banned outright - it is permitted only when justified by significant value, kept at minimal risk, and followed by prompt debriefing.
- Confusing anonymous (no identifiers ever collected) with confidential (identifiers held but protected).
- Forgetting that confidentiality is legally broken for reportable harm.